NCAA 2015 Football News: What Are College Football Coaches Really Worth?
How much money is a football coach worth? Are college coaches more valuable than NFL coaches because the recruitment of players falls more on a college coaches shoulders. Can a coach make that much of a difference? Jim Harbaugh recently said that he doesn't think he is worth his $5 million a year, and many have questioned if Nick Saban is worth north of $7 million a year to Alabama.
"I like making a buck just like the next guy. I'm not doing five times as much work as somebody else or doing more work than someone who's not the head football coach at the University of Michigan," Bryan Fischer Harbaugh wrote for College Football 24/7. "So to answer your question, honestly, I would have to say no."
Harbaugh is known to be a guy who speaks his mind but these seem like very odd comments made by a guy who just signed a seven year contract to coach football at his alma matter on a deal worth a reported $40 million. The powers that be at the University of Michigan certainly think Harbaugh is worth every penny of this deal, but that might change if he losses to Ohio State later this year.
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"Michigan fans will think Harbaugh will be worth every penny, however, if he's able to turn around the football program and have the Wolverines competing for national titles again just as the maize and blue used to do nearly a decade ago," Fisher added.
Ben Axelrod of Bleacher Report added his thoughts: "In some cases, the coaches aren't worth it, but in many of them, they are. In the case of Michigan, which has proved profitable regardless of results but has yet to reach its ceiling, it's hard to envision a world where Harbaugh doesn't prove worth his paycheck."
