MAC’s new coaching reality can be unsettling

Decisions, decisions.

For the second straight winter, Toledo football coach Jason Candle suddenly faces a choice that might seem straight out of Opposite World.

Should he stay the big fish in one of the top jobs in the Mid-American Conference?

Or should he go to be an assistant coach in a bigger, more lucrative pond?

Not long ago, a power program asking a successful Group of Five coach to consider a traditional step down the corporate ladder — as Miami has with Candle (again)— would have been a slap in the face.

Everyone knew the pecking order: Assistant coaches at bigger schools advanced to be head coaches at smaller schools, not vice versa, and head coaches at smaller schools left to be head coaches at bigger schools.

But times change.

Today, college football’s exploding financial divide — fueled by mountains of TV money— threatens to turn the MAC into a very different kind of stepping stone.

In December, rising-star Kent State coach Sean Lewis left to double his salary as the offensive coordinator at Colorado, and, as of this week, Candle reportedly faces The Decision 2.0, with Miami once more courting him to be its OC.

A year after Candle spurned Miami, Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal just fired the guy he hired instead (Josh Gattis) and is back holding a boombox above his head outside his Toledo counterpart’s window.

He made him another offer — as reported by Football Scoop and confirmed by The Blade — this one presumably in the range of $2 million per year. (Candle signed an incentive-laden extension with Toledo last month that pays him at least $1.1 million annually.)

Meanwhile, in addition to the Convicts, the Catholics are eyeing Candle, too. Notre Dame is on the market for an OC after its $2 million coordinator Tommy Rees left last week for the same role at Alabama, and Candle is a candidate, per Football Scoop.

Now, does he want to be a candidate?

I don’t know.

While he hasn’t made any public statements, my strong sense is he’ll remain at Toledo, where the reigning MAC champs could make serious noise this season.

Win big this autumn, and Candle, 43, will be in the mix for bigger head coaching jobs.

Still, for the MAC, the escape by Lewis — along with the idea that other schools view the newly extended coach of Toledo as attainable as an assistant — is quite the reality check, not to mention a herald of the future.

“You can’t fault a coach for taking a huge pay raise but, if the coaching community believes that being an OC at an elite program is a better pathway toward sustainable quality of life or an elite job, that’s worth some introspection on behalf of the MAC,” said Matt Brown, publisher of Extra Points, a popular industry newsletter and website. “I can’t see any reason why that trend would change if elite coordinators can double their salary compared to MAC head coaches.”

Neither can I.

Again, that’s hard to fathom.

Since the beginning of time, if a coach left a MAC school on his terms, it was almost always for a lead role on a bigger stage. At Toledo, Frank Lauterbur went on to Iowa, Gary Pinkel to Missouri, Tim Beckman to Illinois, and Matt Campbell to Iowa State. At Bowling Green, Don Nehlen went to West Virginia, Urban Meyer to Utah, Dave Clawson to Wake Forest, and Dino Babers to Syracuse.

But the ecosystem today is a bit different.

How different? Flash back to 2003, the earliest year for which comparative federal data is available.

Toledo and Bowling Green spent $4.5 million and $4.6 million on football, respectively, while Ohio State and Michigan spent $16.1 million and $10.6 million. Illinois — which won the Big Ten in 2001 — invested just $7.4 million.

Fifteen years later, Toledo and BG spent $10.4 million and $7.1 million. Ohio State and Michigan spent $52.3 million and $44.7 million. Even poor little Illinois ponied up $26.7 million.

And the gap is only growing. (I mean, the Big Ten just signed a seven-year, $7 billion media rights deal. The MAC’s contract with ESPN pays each school about $1 million per year.)

Which, back to our original topic, suggests a step down can really be a step up.

While there has always been a big resource divide between smaller and bigger schools, it is now such a chasm that even the top MAC head coaches can earn way more as a power-conference assistant.

Get this: The 12 head coaches in the MAC made a combined $5.31 million last year — or less than the assistant coaches banked at 27 public schools, according to a USA Today database. (Ohio State’s 10 assistants made $8.8 million.)

The market is bonkers, and, big picture, it all but assures a self-perpetuating cycle will keep gaining momentum: the most attractive young coaches are often perceived to be those working as big-school assistants, which means, when a big-school head coaching job come open, they’ll get just as much of a look as a proven boss at a lower level. (Look at who’s getting the A-list jobs these days: Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, and Dan Lanning all skipped straight to the top.)

To be sure, none of this means the MAC is hopeless.

While the league continues to fall behind even its Group of Five peers, let alone the big boys, the best-run athletic departments will always find a way to do more with less, and, every now and then, the best coaches will still be courted for lead jobs at bigger programs.

I’m not suggesting schools should begin throwing around money they don’t have.

When I recently asked MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher if the league needed to step up its money game, he replied: “It depends on what you’re investing in. I’m always going to encourage more investment, but we need to do so wisely, and we need to do so appropriately based on what’s going on at our institutions. There are any number of institutions that are — from where I sit — spending money just to spend money. Where we’ve found our niche is being very efficient and very effective with our resources, and we have to continue to do so.”

Fair enough.

Still, money talks, and, as time goes on, more and more MAC head coaches will face a decision they never could have imagined.

Should they hold out in hopes of landing an offer that might not come? Or try to advance their career by taking a better-paying assistant job?

Welcome to the MAC’s new reality.

Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.