With college football approaching a $2B industry, Forbes has dug into compensation and performance to try to determine the best (and worst) coaching values. The formula they used is pretty straight-forward (though the bonus points for BCS wins isn't exactly spelled out):
To measure bang for the buck, we developed a metric that compares a coach’s 2007 salary with his team’s performance over the past three years. Bonus points were awarded for winning any of the five prestigious Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowl games. A score of 120 means that the coach achieved 20% more victories per dollar of pay than the average coach.
Despite the two big game losses, Tressel still came out on top of their rankings -- mostly due to the fact that he's only the 9th-highest paid coach in BCS football:
Good coach, bad coachBut the best bargain was Ohio State’s Jim Tressel, who scored a 122. Tressel has led the Buckeyes to the last two national championship games (losing to Florida in 2007 and Louisiana State in 2008) and was paid $2.6 million last season, less than eight of his peers.
The worst coach for the buck, according to Forbes, is also a Big Ten coach (and rightfully one that's on the hottest seat in the conference):
The most overpaid coach is Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, who made $3.4 million last year despite lackluster results on the field, for a score of 71. Just how lopsided is Ferentz’s deal? During the last three years he’s pocketed $10 million, including a record $4.7 million in 2006, but has led the Hawkeyes to just a 19-18 record.
Mike Riley, Jim Grobe, Pete Carroll and Frank Beamer round out the top five, while Greg Robinson of Syracuse, Charlie Weis, Ralph Friedgen and Al Groh round out their bottom five.
