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Is Whittingham Overpaid?

Did you know Coach Whittingham is currently the 2nd highest paid coach in the PAC12 (2nd only to BYU alum Steve Sarkesian at Washington. At the start of the season, the top paid coach was Lane Kiffin at USC. I think we'd all expect the USC head coach to be at the top of the PAC12 in salary.

However, you might be surpised to find out that Coach Whitt's salary is only 6% below Kiffin's ($2,594,091 vs $2,427,100).

Currently, the UofU is paying Kyle Whittingham more than the coaches earn at Oregon, Oregon St, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona St, Washington St, California, and Colorado (to be fair...Stanford's salary is not publicly known, so we can't be certain where David Shaw would rank. I'm also fairly certain USC's interim coach isn't paid anywhere near what Kiffin was making).

Understandably, Kiffin's salary and position at USC came with very high expectations. When he wasn't able to meet those expectations, Lane Kiffin was fired. Considering Coach Whitt's salary...shouldn't the expectations on him be nearly as high? Are they?

Here's the table of PAC12 Coach's Salaries
NAT RANK SCHOOL HEAD COACH BASE SALARY
25 (Fired) USC Lane Kiffin $2,594,091
26 Washington Steve Sarkesian $2,575,000
33 Utah Kyle Whittingham $2,427,100
35 Colorado Mike MacIntyre $2,403,500
36 California Sonny Dykes $2,394,000
37 Arizona State Todd Graham $2,300,000
38 UCLA Jim Mora $2,300,000
40 Washington State Mike Leach $2,250,000
45 Arizona Rich Rodriguez $1,850,000
56 Oregon Mark Helfrich $1,800,000
64 Oregon State Mike Riley $1,417,843
? Stanford David Shaw Private

Personally, I was a bit shocked to see these figures. However, what surprized me more than the rankings among PAC12 coaches was where our coaches rank nationally! See, even though Coach Whitt is #2 in the PAC12...he is only #33 nationally. In fact, the top paid coach in the PAC12 (was Kiffin) ranked only #25 nationally. I don't know about you, but it certainly seems like either the PAC12 is dramatically underpaying its coaches, or some of the other conferences are way overpaying.

So...let the debate begin. Is Coach Whittingham's performance worthy of the #2 salary among all of the PAC12 coaches? I realize Oregon's coach is in his first year, but who could argue that right now...Oregon is easily getting the most bang for their buck!!

To see the entire table of coaching salaries, go to this link: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/salaries/ncaaf/coach/

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