SAN FRANCISCO --- Chip Kelly met with officials from the University of Florida in late November of last year. The Gators came to New Hampshire because they wanted Kelly to be their next football coach. Florida dangled $6 million a year in salary, fertile recruiting geography, and the promise to build Kelly a $65 million football-only training facility.

He turned them down.

Days later, UCLA landed Kelly to a five-year, $23.3 million contract. Seven months later, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott touted Kelly's hiring as evidence that his conference could stay competitive with Power Five Conference peers without economic parity.

"The Chip Kelly derby was one of the most watched national coaching searches," Scott said on conference football media day in Hollywood. "And he could have wound up in any league in the country if he wanted to. He wanted to be in the Pac-12, he wanted to be at UCLA, and they were able to pay competitively."

It was a stretch.

Kelly wanted to live on the West Coast.

LEFT OUT

From officiating issues to high operating costs to being left out of the College Football Playoff for the second straight year, the Pac-12 Conference is facing a multitude of problems.

This is part three

in a four-part series that takes a deeper look at what is ailing the conference.

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The moment is reflective of Scott's leadership style. That he talked so flippantly about UCLA's ability to pay competitively raised eyebrows. The salary trend among Pac-12 Conference football coaches raises questions whether the commissioner and the Pac-12 CEO Group understand how it falls short of being competitive.

Kelly is the 40th-highest paid coach in college this football season. The Pac-12 Conference doesn't have a single head coach in the Top 15 in pay. Washington's Chris Petersen - No. 19 - makes $4.4 million a year. In front of the Huskies' coach: seven head coaches from the Big Ten, five from the SEC, four from the Big 12 and two more from the ACC.

Dave Bartoo, managing partner of Maxtrix Analytical Solutions, consults with dozens of universities engaged in coaching searches. He said that hiring typically boils down to which university offers the biggest number.

"Everything revolves around money," Bartoo said. "Other than lifestyle and personal preferences, who takes a pay cut of $3.5 million and 10-plus percent in income tax a year?

"Nobody but Chip Kelly."

It was about fit for Kelly. Also, Kelly was going to get paid either way. He was scheduled to earn $6.5 million this season from the 49ers, but his NFL contract had an offset against earnings from another coaching job. UCLA picked up $3.125 million of that. Next season, Kelly is due $7.7 million from the 49ers. The Bruins will pay only $3.75 million of that.

It's a fortunate development for UCLA. Because the Bruins aren't armed by the Pac-12's annual distribution to win a bidding war with an SEC or Big Ten program. Commissioner Scott may have acted like it on media day, but the conference athletic directors know better.

Said former Utah AD Chris Hill: "All the ADs are trying to save nickels and dimes. People may say, 'What are you talking about? You're paying your football coach $2 million a year.' Believe me, when your revenue isn't as high as others you have to take a look at spending."

Hill knows. He worked 31 years at Utah before retiring last spring.

The Pac-12 Conference distributes less revenue ($31 million each) annually to its members than other major college conferences. Far less than the SEC ($41 million) and Big Ten (soon to be in excess of $50 million). As a result, it makes sense that Pac-12 athletic directors would act with more fiscal responsibility than their peers when it comes to spending on coaches, facilities, nutrition, strength programs, recruiting, and assistant-coach pools. They're cash strapped.

A notable exception: Oregon.

Phil Knight's financial support and Nike's backing turned the Ducks into an outlier in a conference that was rapidly falling behind in major college football. Uniforms, facilities, and branding helped put the Ducks in the national championship game twice in the last decade. Having financial support and a visionary leader is a lethal combination in college athletics. But Kelly left for the NFL. His departure, and Oregon's subsequent falloff, was proof that money alone doesn't equate with winning.

Said one former Pac-12 AD: "There are lot of well-funded disasters. Think USC."

It was donor money that footed the buyout bill when Oregon parted ways with Kelly's successor, Mark Helfrich, just 20 months after it awarded him a five-year, $17.5 million contract extension. And donor money that continues now to help the Ducks try to keep up with Washington, Stanford and Washington State at the top of the North Division.

When the Ducks interviewed defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt for their head-coaching vacancy in favor of Mario Cristobal last winter, they had an advantage over some others. Oregon knew it could afford not to make Leavitt the head coach. Athletic director Rob Mullens liked Cristobal and gave him $2.5 million a year. And Mullens had the resources remaining to offer Leavitt a raise ($1.7 million annually) to stay on the job as an assistant.

UO made Leavitt the highest paid coordinator in the Pac-12. In fact, this season he'll make $200,000 more than Cal head coach Justin Wilcox. Oregon's athletic-department fundraising provides an edge. It's a luxury typically enjoyed only by programs from other major conferences.

LSU, for example, pays its defensive coordinator Dave Aranda, $2.5 million a year. Also, Clemson gave its defensive coordinator, Brent Venables, a raise last winter to $2.3 million annually. They both make more than four Pac-12 head coaches.

"The money is also very important because your average Pac-12 program has to travel more than its peers because the talent is spread out further," Bartoo, the consultant, said. "Now, you're going to Texas and Florida to recruit. I can't imagine what the recruiting budget is for Oregon and Washington and Oregon State and Washington State because they have to travel more.

"I don't know what they have to scrimp on to do that."

Oregon State, strapped with $40 million athletic-department debt and also searching for a football coach last November, hired Jonathan Smith.

His salary: $1.9 million a year.

The Beavers marketing department ramped up "The Return" campaign to trumpet Smith's arrival back on campus, where he'd once led the program to a Fiesta Bowl. In 2010, the Beavers season-ticket base was 24,908. This season it sold 15,393 season tickets. Hiring Smith was a smart, clear play on down-home, college-town loyalty. OSU hopes will result in fresh culture and renewed interest in the program.

The bottom line on OSU's hire certainly mattered. Smith is the 63rd highest paid coach in the country. Only two Power Five Conference football coaches make less.

Right in front of Smith at No. 62 on the salary list is Arizona State first-year coach Herm Edwards ($2 million annually). That hire was a road-less-traveled move by the Sun Devils. Edwards hadn't coached in college in nearly 30 years, but went 7-5 in his first regular season. And one spot in front of Edwards on the pay rankings is Arizona's first-year coach Kevin Sumlin (No. 61), whose base pay is $1.6 million. Sumlin's contract at his last job, Texas A&M was worth $6 million a year.

Said Bartoo: "Different athletic directors have different piles of chips in front of them."

Those hires underscore the economic realities for Pac-12 Conference members. But they don't tell the complete picture. The San Francisco-based conference headquarters operates with little day-to-day oversight. Also, it enjoys the comfort of low expectations from the university presidents. It makes one wonder about the value university administration assigns to football.

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Former Oregon football coach Mike Bellotti visited the spring football game at Auburn a couple of years ago and was blown away by the tailgate crowd.

"There were 67,000 fans there. Right down the road, same day, at Alabama there were 90,000," Bellotti said. "I've seen 77,000 at spring games at Florida. Those people, it's in their blood. It's ingrained.

"It's not that way in the Pac-12."

Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Alabama have all averaged more than 100,000 fans per home football game over the last five seasons. Texas A&M averaged 99,318. None of the Top 19 teams in the country in attendance over the last five seasons came from the Pac-12.

USC is No. 20, and sinking.

The Pac-12 Conference doesn't have a single 100,000-seat venue. The Rose Bowl (91,936) is the Pac-12's biggest, but eight of the 12 conference stadiums are smaller than 60,000 in capacity. The Pac-12 football programs averaged 49,601 fans per game last season. That put the conference fourth among the Power Five Conferences, and more than 25,000 fans per game behind the SEC (75,074).

"I don't think the Pac-12 fan understands recruiting like the SEC, Big Ten or the ACC," Bellotti said. "I don't think the fans in the Pac-12 make it a daily venture. It's one day a week for seven weekends a year. It's that way year-round in the SEC."

Who is primarily to blame?

It's long been a point of debate among Pac-12 Conference athletic directors, conference executives and university presidents. Because on one hand, the fans aren't as rabid and unhinged as some in other conferences. Football isn't embedded in the culture. That results in lower attendance figures, less demand for the product on television, and less enthusiasm for athletic department donations.

But the Pac-12 Conference plays a key role, too.

Late kickoff times, often after 10 p.m. on the East Coast have limited national visibility for the programs. That has created smaller geographical footprints for the members. Also, its deterred local fans away from buying season tickets, because kickoff times are sometimes announced as little as six days in front of the game.

Also, the lack of a Pac-12 Networks distribution deal with DirecTV left a large swath of Pac-12 fans unable to even watch their teams on a consistent basis from home. The television broadcasts of football games have been a discouraging endeavor. Also, the line of bowl-game alliances, Rose Bowl aside, are less attractive than other conferences.

Also, after this bowl season, Pac-12 football teams will have missed the College Football Playoff three times in five seasons.

Those things don't foster rabid enthusiasm.

The Pac-12 trumpets itself with the motto: "The Conference of Champions." It won more than twice the NCAA titles than its nearest competing conference last year. Those titles came in sports such as baseball, soccer, tennis, water polo and other Olympic sports, however.

In football, the Pac-12 is a non-factor nationally.

Said Scott on football media day: "I know there are some fans that maybe don't care about Oregon State winning the baseball College World Series or USC winning the women's track and field or how we do in softball. That's what our schools care about. But I understand fans and some in the media might only focus on football."

Buried in his missive was an important sentence: That's what our schools care about.

Scott wasn't talking about the schools, per se. He was talking specifically about the Pac-12 CEO Group, his bosses. And he was explicitly saying that the Pac-12 university presidents and chancellors -- people rooted in the academic world -- care very much about winning those non-revenue generating championships.

It explains why Scott still has a job.

Also, why Scott, who makes $4.8 million annually, went all-in on the conference-owned Pac-12 Network. It occupies 90,000 square feet of high-priced downtown San Francisco office space, and employs 170 full-time employees. The network signed on at one point to broadcast 850 annual events, mostly in those minor peripheral sports.

AT&T announced this week that its U-Verse service would no longer carry the Pac-12 Networks. It drops the total number of estimated households the network can reach to 17.5 million. The Big Ten Network, by comparison, reaches 60-plus million households. The SEC Network also reaches more than 60 million households, and is even available on the International Space Station.

Scott still sees a silver lining.

"We're the only conference in the country that, come 2024, is going to have all our rights back, complete control," Scott said at media day, "and we'll be able to adapt, react, and take advantage of this new world media order that's coming in a way others can't."

His message fell flat.

Between now and 2024, the Pac-12 Conference is projected to distribute $60 million to $80 million less to its members than the SEC and Big Ten.

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The single most frustrating element of Larry Scott's tenure for some fans is the commissioner's failure to get the Pac-12 Networks on DirecTV. It's long been a source of frustration for Scott himself, who encounters questions about the carriage issue every season.

"I wish the results were different," Scott said. "I wish we had DirecTV. I don't know what we could have done differently. We went to them first, before Dish, before anybody else, and they weren't interested. We've had a lot of time to think about if there's anything we could have done to get them on board."

Insiders at the Pac-12 headquarters say Scott could have, and should have, got a distribution deal done with DirecTV. Scott locked up cable companies early. And then, he engaged DirecTV in a standoff that one high-ranking conference official called, "a staring contest."

Cable companies have always been willing to pay premium rates for sports content that viewers in their footprint care deeply about. Not everyone loves to watch the Pac-12, though. The advantage cable companies had was that they could turn on/off the programming, creating packages that worked for their subscribers. DirecTV could not at the time, and as a result it needed rates that wouldn't be costly to subscribers who were not interested in the Pac-12 Network.

Trouble is, discount provisions in the contracts Scott negotiated with the cable companies and Dish Network would kick in if he discounted the rates for DirecTV. Basically, he'd have to unwind the contracts and give money back.

Scott had a dilemma: He could either have eyeballs of millions of DirecTV households or he could hold the line on rates.

Said one conference executive: "The thinking was that Pac-12 fans would raise so much noise that DirecTV would eventually have to agree to a deal. I think Larry overestimated how rabid the Pac-12 fan would be about calling DirecTV to raise hell.

"SEC fans would have gone into DirecTV with molotov cocktails."

AT&T now owns DirecTV. It's in the content business and now it's not only refusing to cut a distribution deal with the Pac-12 Conference, it's removed the programming from U-Verse service.

"Those are key households in good areas," the source said. "They're just squeezing the Pac-12 Networks."

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Former UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel knows the dirty little secret that Chip Kelly is up against in Westwood.

"The darlings of the Olympics," Neuheisel said.

It's not just that the Bruins receive less funding from its conference than peers at other Power Five Conferences. UCLA's football program is also in a fierce competition for support with the non-revenue producing sports on its own 419-acre campus.

It's a competition fueled by Scott's mission to create that Olympic-type content for the Pac-12 Networks.

UCLA had a $7.5 million agreement with Adidas while Neuheisel was the Bruins' coach. About $1 million of that came in the form of apparel and equipment. Neuheisel said only a fraction of the equipment allocation ever made its way to football.

"We didn't even have enough gloves for everyone on the team," he said. "We were asked to share with the rest of the athletic department. I couldn't go to my first and second-string players and give them gloves and then not give everyone else gloves.

"It sounds like a small thing, but all of a sudden my guys aren't getting what the players at Tennessee are getting. That matters to players. Relative to the other football programs and relative to pleasing the athletes who are your mouthpieces in recruiting, we were behind."

The University of Oregon's athletic department budget for the fiscal year 2017 included expenses in sports such as track and field ($4.5 million), softball ($1.6 million), acrobatics ($1 million), volleyball ($1.5 million), men's and women's golf ($1.5 million), women's lacrosse ($1.2 million), and a line other sports you might one day see on the Pac-12 Network.

The football program at Oregon, the biggest cash-printing machine on campus, operated at a $4 million profit. The athletic department financials are an example of one of the healthier models in the Pac-12 Conference. But it underscores the importance of gift-giving, largely driven by Phil and Penny Knight.

The Knights donated $30 million toward the Autzen Stadium expansion in 2002. They made another $41.7 million contribution toward an academic center for student athletes in 2010. And between 2011 and 2013 the Knights gave more than $168 million total to fund the construction of the Ducks cutting-edge football operations building and Matthew Knight Arena.

Oregon generated $27 million in athletic department gifts last fiscal year. Those donations drive football facility improvements, and investment in salaries, and also, help support sports programs such as track and field. Healthy subsidies from UO boosters help make that annual $30 million distribution from the Pac-12 Conference feel more like Big Ten or SEC money.

The Pac-12 has some fabulous academic institutions. It has some great college towns. Arizona State - 51,000 students at its main campus in Tempe - is top-five in the country in enrollment. But it's fair to ask whether the Pac-12 has a conference headquarters committed to helping fuel enthusiasm for its football programs.

The funding falls short. The television network has been a disappointment. The conference ADs are counting nickels and dimes.

There was an impressive throng of fans at that Auburn spring game.

Mike Bellotti's eyes didn't lie.

Coming Friday, PART FOUR: Closing the door on the Pac-12 headquarters.