Earlier this week, USA Today published a database of how much money all of the college football assistant coaches at public universities in the United States made this year, and the University of Utah had a very expensive staff, at least at the top.
Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig was the fifth-highest paid assistant coach in the entire country with a salary of $2,050,000, while defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley was tied for eighth with a salary of $2 million.
Ohio State was the only school to also have two assistant coaches in the top 10. Buckeyes offensive coordinator Jim Knowles was the third-highest paid assistant at $2.2 million and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly was tied with Scalley at $2 million.
LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker was the highest-paid assistant in the country at $2.5 million.
This data comes following a season in which Utah finished just 5-7. It also comes as Ludwig resigned his position on Oct. 21 following weeks of abysmal performances from the Ute offense.
Scalley, meanwhile, is the head coach in waiting at Utah for whenever Kyle Whittingham decides to retire. Many thought that could happen this month, though Whittingham announced on Sunday that he will be returning for the 2025 campaign.
The rest of the Utes’ assistant coaches salary pool:
- Jim Harding, assistant head coach/offensive line coach: $850,000.
- Sharrieff Shah, special teams coordinator/cornerbacks coach: $700,000.
- Lewis Powell, defensive ends coach: $600,000.
- Fred Whittingham, tight ends coach/recruiting coordinator: $525,000.
- Colton Swan, linebackers coach: $450,000.
- Alvis Whitted, wide receivers coach: $425,000.
- Luther Elliss, defensive tackles coach: $350,000.
- Quinton Ganther, running backs coach: $325,000.
As Football Scoop’s Zach Barnett observed, Utah had by far the biggest salary pool for assistant coaches this year (it should be noted that private schools such as BYU are not required to disclose this information) at $8.275 million.
Oklahoma State was next at $6 million and Texas Tech was third at $5.3 million.
All of the salaries for Utah’s assistants are more than what Utah State’s highest paid assistant — offensive coordinator Kyle Cefalo — was salaried at, $280,000.
For comparison’s sake to Utah State in the Mountain West Conference, New Mexico’s coordinators — Jason Beck, who is now the offensive coordinator at Utah and Nick Howell, who is now the defensive coordinator at Utah State under former Lobos head coach Bronco Mendenhall — each had a salary of $400,000.
As Barnett observed, those were tied for the fifth-highest of any salary among Mountain West assistants.