Follow the money. We've heard the expression hundreds of times. In fact, many of us have acted on the expression in our own lives. People go where more money and resources are. It's part of our biological human nature. For right or for wrong, money always seems to persuade people to do things. This trait is especially true for football coaches.Wisconsin defensive coordinator Dave Aranda is leaving to assume the same position at LSU. Aranda is set to make around $1.3 million compared to the $520,000 he made at Wisconsin this past year. Anyone who immediately says they wouldn't make that move is either lying or they didn't hear the numbers correctly. The question people are asking is: Why couldn't the Badgers keep the beloved coach in Madison for at least another year? Perhaps the real question is: Why didn't our current athletic administration make more of an effort to keep Aranda around?
Moving past the money, the move makes sense for a guy like Aranda. At age 38, he's one of the better up-and-coming assistant coaches in college football. In his first year with Wisconsin in 2013, he changed a suspect Badger defense from a 4-3 scheme to a 3-4. The result: Wisconsin ranked in the top-20 in almost every defensive category. This last season under Aranda, the Badgers ranked second in total defensive yardage and were the top team in scoring defense in all of college football. We can talk about stats all day long, but the bottom line is Dave Aranda is a coveted assistant coach with potential to move to the NFL as a defensive coordinator or a college head coach, whichever he wishes to pursue. Many people believe Aranda's epitome is in the NFL as a defensive coordinator. Should he want to pursue the NFL, it will be much easier to do so from a program as large as LSU compared to Wisconsin. So for the money and the potential for career growth, Aranda made the right call in heading to LSU.
But the Badgers had the chance to keep him, and the fact that they didn't is a direct result of a University, athletic department, and athletic director once again failing to realize the potential and necessity in keeping high-profile and coveted assistant coaches in Madison. This isn't the first time we've seen successful Wisconsin assistant coaches and head coaches leave for other jobs that don't appear to be an "upgrade" over coaching for the Badgers. Former Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema left Madison for the head coaching job at Arkansas, citing the inability for Wisconsin to offer competitive pay to keep assistant coaches around. This last season, both coordinators at Arkansas made more than Aranda. Just two years ago, Gary Andersen left Wisconsin for Oregon State due to many of the same reasons. Wisconsin has lost numerous head and assistant coaches that all had concerns about pay for themselves and pay for other assistant coaches. It's not a coincidence, folks.
The worst part of the whole story is that Dave Aranda wanted to stay in Madison. Go back to last summer and he was quoted saying, “Family, number one, it was best to stay. My wife loves it here, my kids love their teachers, they like their schools, they’re in love with the neighborhood we’re at.” It was also reported that Aranda turned down offers of over $1 million a year from Miami and Virginia Tech to stay at Wisconsin. But Wisconsin failed to come up with even a few thousand dollars to give Aranda a raise and when LSU offered him the $1.4 million, it was an offer that Aranda understandably couldn't turn down.
So, who's to blame for all of this mess? The easy answer is Barry Alvarez. Moving past the big ego of an athletic director, you can then look at the University of Wisconsin and its board of regents for some of the blame. Just a couple years ago, the University "found" what was reported to be about $1 billion in a fund that was unaccounted for. This came in unison with a continuous annual tuition increase. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was so upset about this that he froze tuition. So, what did UW do with all of this money they found? The first thing they did was spend nearly $100 million on upgrades to Camp Randall Stadium with new locker rooms and a student-athlete performance center. They also built a new golf complex as well as renovations to the basketball and hockey locker rooms in the Kohl Center. UW also won $234 million in a lawsuit against Apple when Apple used some software created in Madison. Now, I'm not saying that the athletic facilities shouldn't have been upgraded. Many of the facilities, football included, were very outdated and lagged far behind the rest of the Big Ten. But you can't tell me that a University that has a $1 billion surplus that they don't tell anyone about can't afford to give Dave Aranda a few hundred thousand dollar pay raise to keep him around.
The morale of the story is this: Wisconsin will fail to keep top-notch coaches and assistants around the football program as long as Barry Alvarez is athletic director. Football coaches are human beings first, and just like the rest of us, they're going to follow the money in almost every circumstance. I understand the issue is bigger than Alvarez having and ego and not wanting someone to steal his thunder. But for someone like Barry who is a legend and icon at the University of Wisconsin and in college football across the nation, he has more than enough pull to be able to get more money into the football program to be able to pay coaches. Wisconsin football is certainly not a stepping stone in terms of quality of play and all other measure of overall success. But it's becoming a stepping stone for coaches that head to places they'll get paid more. And until our athletic director and University administration realizes that and admits that, Wisconsin football will never take off to that next level it's capable of going to.
The morale of the story is this: Wisconsin will fail to keep top-notch coaches and assistants around the football program as long as Barry Alvarez is athletic director. Football coaches are human beings first, and just like the rest of us, they're going to follow the money in almost every circumstance. I understand the issue is bigger than Alvarez having and ego and not wanting someone to steal his thunder. But for someone like Barry who is a legend and icon at the University of Wisconsin and in college football across the nation, he has more than enough pull to be able to get more money into the football program to be able to pay coaches. Wisconsin football is certainly not a stepping stone in terms of quality of play and all other measure of overall success. But it's becoming a stepping stone for coaches that head to places they'll get paid more. And until our athletic director and University administration realizes that and admits that, Wisconsin football will never take off to that next level it's capable of going to.
Great insight, maybe if they considered their students and alumni who pay good money for tickets and expect a good product on the field they'd be more inclined to keep top notch coaches
ReplyDeleteGood insight Zach. I think all of it ties together: Aranda knows Wisconsin isn't a perennial title contender (LSU is), LSU offered him nearly double the salary, and Wisconsin doesn't necessarily have the stepping stone pedigree LSU does. Aranda is a smart man who is going to make whichever team he coaches for very happy they are paying for his services. That said, I think Aranda leaving opens the door for another D.C. that Chryst can help pick himself.
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