Oregon keeps coaching cost per victory among lowest

Renowned for its spending on football facilities, the University of Oregon this season has been one of the nation's least extravagant schools when it comes to basic coaching cost per victory.

Not bad for a team that will be playing in the College Football Playoff.

Winning 12 games, including the Pacific-12 Conference title game, certainly has made a difference for Oregon's coaching cost-effectiveness. But so has the school's inclination toward continuity, its willingness to pay very well for good performance and its ability to pay exceptionally well for championship performance.

Mark Helfrich, in only his second season as a head coach, is getting $2 million from the school — just above the Bowl Subdivision average, according to a recent USA TODAY Sports analysis. His nine assistants are totaling a little less than $3.3 million. Put it all together, and Oregon's basic payroll cost per win has been just under $440,000. That's the lowest among any of the public schools in the five power conferences and lower than the basic cost per win this season for 19 schools outside the Power Five.

In addition, Oregon is collecting a little more than $1 million a year from the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles in connection with the buyout that Helfrich's predecessor, Chip Kelly, owed for leaving the school. (The $3.5 million that Kelly owed is being paid in 41 monthly installments, through June 2016, according to an e-mail from Oregon executive senior associate athletics director Eric Roedl.)

By contrast, Colorado is paying coach Mike MacIntyre and his assistants an FBS-high $2.3 million for each of two wins. Northern Illinois has the lowest cost per victory, at a little more than $115,000 in guaranteed money to coach Rod Carey and his staff for each of 11 wins, including one in the Mid-American Conference championship game.

Oregon's advance to the inaugural College Football Playoff will make coaching cost efficiency tougher to achieve in the future and could dramatically alter the school's final coaching outlay for this season.

Athletics director Rob Mullens told USA TODAY Sports this week he already has begun conversations with Helfrich's agent about increasing Helfrich's annual pay. If the Ducks win their semifinal against Florida State, each assistant coach will add bonuses equal to four months' base salary for that achievement alone.

There would be even greater rewards if Oregon wins the national championship. If that happens, Helfrich will end up with $710,000 in on-field performance bonuses and each assistant will come away with an amount equal to eight months' base salary, plus an additional payment of $50,000 or $75,000.

The assistants' bonus package, in terms of total dollars available to the staff, is the most lucrative among FBS public schools.

But Oregon has been at, or near, the top of that category since USA TODAY Sports began surveying assistant coaches' pay in 2009. Since then, however, Oregon's guaranteed-pay pool for assistants has risen from 39th among FBS public schools at about $1.6 million to 15th this season at more than double the 2009 total. Although none of the assistants has basic compensation of greater than $400,000, only one has basic compensation of less than $300,000. Five members of the staff are in at least their 12th season at Oregon.

"We want to retain high achievers," Mullens said. "Our approach is simply we want to be competitive with our guaranteed comp and then we want to find creative ways to reward extraordinary performance."

Oregon rewarded Helfrich's performance over four years as the Ducks' offensive coordinator by hiring him to replace Kelly, who was making $3.5 million when he left after the 2012. Helfrich was paid $1.8 million last season, then given a $200,000 raise.

Oregon's football facility, which opened in 2013, cost $68 million, according to multiple news media outlets, so the university has not been shy about backing the program. The prospect of paying Helfrich much less than what Kelly was making "was not part of our decision-making," Mullens said. "We hired Mark Helfrich because of the body of work that he had done here as an assistant.

"One of the things that has really, really been a huge asset to the long-term growth and performance of Oregon football is the continuity. When we went out and did a national search, we knew we had an internal candidate, and as we looked at the internal candidate versus the national search, he was clearly the best candidate, hands-down. And he's performed at a very high level."

PHOTOS: Coaches making at least $3 million