Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/114977
I work for; I love where I work. I don���t want to change who I work for, and I don���t want to change where I work.��� Notre Dame is one of 18 Football Bowl Subdivision teams that will start its spring drills with the same staff that finished the year last fall. The other 85 percent of schools competing at college football���s highest level will introduce at least one new coach. Last year, the turnover rate was even higher with only 15 teams that retained all 10 of their official coaches. Only two programs, Minnesota and Northwestern, have gone back-to-back seasons without needing nametags in the spring. Change is the lone constant for college coaches. Underachieving teams search for a fresh start. Overachieving teams lose bodies to poachers from bigger schools or more prestigious job titles. Notre Dame is no different. A year ago, the Irish announced a major restructuring in their football offices. Head coach Brian Kelly added three new faces ��� vet- erans Bob Elliott and Harry Hiestand and former graduate assistant Scott Booker ��� to replace some unexpected defectors. Five of the six other assistants who remained on board switched to a new position group or added a new title. That shake-up and the new chemistry it created is at least in some way responsible for Notre Dame jumping from a middle of the road bowl team to a national championship contender in 2012. In the wake of that success, Kelly managed to keep all his coaches in South Bend (and Notre Dame managed to keep Kelly). That, says coaching insider Pete Roussel, is nothing short of ���remarkable.��� ���With the veteran coaches they have on that staff there is no question there are a number of guys that could have pursued other opportunities, maybe made a little bit more money,��� said Roussel, who operates CoachingSearch.com, a website dedicated to reporting the comings and goings of football coaches. So why didn���t they? Money for college coaches has skyrocketed in recent years. The average salary for an assistant has increased by 29 percent since 2009, according to a study published by USA Today in December. Two weeks after allowing 70 points in the 2012 Orange Bowl, Clemson hired Brent Venables to fix its defense. They agreed to pay him $800,000 ��� exactly twice the base salary of U.S. President Barack Obama. The new contract put him at No. 7 on the list of highestpaid college assistants. Notre Dame doesn���t disclose the amount it pays any of its staffers, but the Irish are historically known for not shelling out the way some other top programs do. Healthy bank accounts have become so ubiquitous, though, that for many coaches the bottom line is no longer their top priority. Kelly flirted with the NFL���s Philadelphia Eagles in January. He said later that month that he pulled himself out of the running for their head job ��� one that would have added millions to