If Rick Stockstill was looking to teach his football players a “put your money where your mouth could be” lesson, he absolutely nailed it.
The Middle Tennessee State head coach was due, per his old contract, a $100,000 raise in 2015. And the same raise each of the next three years as well. A funny thing happened on the way to the bank -- Stockstill requested, per the details of a new contract, that his raises be delayed until after the 2018 season.
Stockstill’s reasoning? The rising cost of doing business in big-time college football, not the least of which is the cost of attendance initiative that, while putting additional money in the pockets of the players who play the sport, will strain some of the budgets of the so-called Group of Five programs.
“I went to (MTSU athletics director) Chris (Massaro) at the end of the season,” Stockstill told the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal. “I knew financially we were going to be in a tight place with cost of attendance and everything else going on. ...
“I went to him, and I said I want to do everything I can to make sure that we can pay the cost of attendance.”
Additionally, Stockstill cited the need for better facilities -- and the funds to build them -- as yet another reason for his decision to push his raises off into the future.
Stockstill will make $721,000 in 2015, a salary that will remain static until at least the 2019 offseason. In 2014, Stockstill was the highest-paid coach in Conference USA with a total compensation, including various bonuses, of $801,000. The next closest was Rice’s David Bailiff at $780,000.
Marshall’s Doc Holliday‘s new contract, announced in April, will pay the long-time Herd head coach an average of $755,000 over the next four years.
