Southern Miss is near the bottom in football coaching salaries. Can USM keep up?

The majority of college football coaches have been handsomely compensated for many years.

Until recently, though, assistant coaches’ pay has not experienced the same drastic upward swing. Five years ago, the average annual salary for an FBS assistant was $216,000 and 23 assistants eclipsed the $600,000 plateau — more than double the number of coaches who made that much in 2010.

Today, 15 assistants make more than $1 million per year and that doesn’t factor in potential bonus pay. Seventy-one coordinators/position coaches are paid $600,000 or more.

Such a trend is not quite as dramatic everywhere, though. Southern Miss, in fact, has gone the opposite direction, paying its assistant coaches $820,000 last year, the lowest total in Conference USA and the fourth-lowest in the country ahead of only Idaho, Kent State and New Mexico State. In 2012, that number stood at $1.35 million. By 2015, the pool had dropped to $1.15 million.

It was reduced to its current level in early 2016 and has not gone up or down since.

The financial challenges have become more evident this offseason as three members of Hopson’s staff have left since December. Cornerbacks coach Dan Disch accepted a head coaching position in the German Football League. Receivers coach Desmond Lindsey — who made $90,000 at Southern Miss — took the same job at Memphis, where his predecessor made $175,000 last season.

On Tuesday, Tony Pecoraro turned in his notice to become Lane Kiffin’s defensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic. Pecoraro and Disch were Hopson’s highest-paid assistants last season at $125,000. FAU’s defensive coordinator last season (Chris Kiffin) made $300,000. The move not only represented a step up financially; Pecoraro — who went to high school in Winter Garden, Florida, and whose wife is originally from Miami — said it also affords him the chance to get closer to family.

Every Ole Miss assistant coach and all but one Mississippi State assistant made more than the highest-paid USM assistants for the 2017 season. USM offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson's current salary is only $50,000, since he was still owed $1.375 million per the contract he signed with Kentucky in 2015. The monthly payments he's been receiving since tenure with the Wildcats ended are set to end on June 30, 2018. Requests for comments about Dawson's (presumably) forthcoming salary bump were not answered.

“Our salary pool is not where I want it to be," said Southern Miss athletic director Jon Gilbert, whose annual operating budget sat just north of $25.9 million in 2016-17. "I know in order to retain good coaches, you have to compensate them. But our salary pool is where it is and we’ll continue to work to increase that."

More: Southern Miss loses defensive coordinator Tony Pecoraro to FAU

Third-year head coach Jay Hopson, who makes $500,000 annually (the 13th-lowest in the FBS), said he has and will continue to lobby for pay increases for his coaching staff.

“I want to give these guys as much as I can, but I understand the battles,” he said. “I don’t want a cent for Jay Hopson. If somebody deems I’m worthy of that cent, give it to me. But I’m not lobbying for a cent. For those guys, I am.”

Gilbert, who was hired in January 2017, said the reduction of the football staff’s pool boils down to a variety of factors.

The gradual squeeze has been largely precipitated by the changes in Conference USA’s media rights package as well as the advent of cost-of-attendance stipends many schools are now on the hook for. The league’s previous media deal paid each member institution approximately $1.1 million in television revenue. Prior to the 2016-17 season, Conference USA entered into an agreement that saw that number reduced by roughly $900,000 per school. Cost-of-attendance payments, which began in fiscal year 2017, will cost Southern Miss an estimated $530,000 in fiscal year 2018.

So that's $1.43 million in lost revenue and new costs of running the department, and Gilbert said the amount of revenue generated from student fees and direct institutional support are also parts of the equation. The athletic department received $6.05 million from student fees and $3.66 million from the university (whose enrollment sat at 14,479 last fall) in 2016 — the lowest combined total of any department in C-USA. It would have also marked the lowest among those schools in the AAC whose budget figures are a matter of public record, and the 8th-lowest in the Sun Belt that fiscal year.

More: What does Jon Gilbert hope to accomplish in his second year as Southern Miss' AD?

Teams in Power 5 leagues such as the Big Ten and SEC get around $40 million a year courtesy their lucrative TV deals. The Sun Belt, a much more comparable league to CUSA in 2018, recently renegotiated its deal and its programs, according to the Associated Press, and will see an unspecified increase in the approximate $100,000 annual payments they've been receiving.

Each AAC program also receives roughly $2 million annually via the current television broadcast agreement.

“If you look at the funding model between Conference USA and the American Athletic, their budgets are probably, at minimum, double what we are,” Gilbert said. “They are generating significant revenue off their basketball programs. If you look at general funding, the amount of budget they’re working with compared to us, it’s significant.”

More: Southern Miss is set to welcome two more assistant coaches on offensive side of the ball

Hopson has kept Southern Miss competitive on the field, routinely outperforming its pay grade, despite the fiduciary hardships of the athletic department. The Golden Eagles went 8-5 last season and finished tied for the third-best C-USA record. In Hopson’s two seasons, Southern Miss has a win over an SEC team (Kentucky), a New Orleans Bowl win over Louisiana-Lafayette and an appearance in the Independence Bowl versus national power Florida State in December.

The Golden Eagles have also maintained a strong recruiting standard. In 2017, Southern Miss ranked second in C-USA, according to 247sports.com, and finished higher than all but four programs in the AAC. This year's signing class was ranked sixth in its league and ahead of Memphis, SMU, East Carolina, Tulsa and Colorado State nationally.

UAB, which paid its assistant coaches a total of $989,500 in 2017 after the program was shuttered then revived after two seasons, held the same 6-2 league record as Southern Miss last season.

More: Get to know the recruits in Southern Miss' 2018 signing class

Hopson refuses to lean on the disparity as a crutch.

“We’re not going to use that as a crippler,” he said. “We’re going to try to compete for championships every year no matter what and our players are getting a first-class experience.”

Gilbert has been impressed with the bang Hopson has gotten for his buck.

“Football is certainly very, very important to me as well as this department and this institution,” he said. “I think Jay has done a remarkable job given what he’s inherited.

"I can't wave a wand and fix everything. One of the biggest roles I have as athletic director is to prioritize. You've got to ask yourself, 'What can you do right now?' You have to constantly invest in football, but we've got to generate more revenue to help fund it. That's my job — to go out and try to create additional revenue to invest in (football)."

Clarification: The Hattiesburg American previously reported Southern Miss football's assistant coach salary pool was $2.05 million in 2012. That figure included former head coach Ellis Johnson's $700,000 buyout.