Alex Grinch is officially the highest-paid football assistant in University of Oklahoma history. Now it’s time to see if the returns will be worth that investment.
The OU Board of Regents approved Grinch’s contract Wednesday afternoon in Oklahoma City. The Sooners’ new defensive coordinator received a three-year deal paying him $1.4 million annually, making Grinch the first OU assistant to ever make more than $1 million per year.
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(Technically, Lincoln Riley was the first to get a million-dollar contract as an assistant, but that only lasted a few weeks before he was named coach in the summer of 2017.)
The salary means OU finally is opening its wallet and paying assistants the kind of big money that has become commonplace in other parts of the country — especially the SEC. Twenty-one FBS assistants were paid at least $1 million last season, USA Today’s assistant coach salary database shows, with 10 of those making at least the $1.4 million Oklahoma will pay Grinch.
Oklahoma fans grew frustrated through the final few seasons of the Bob Stoops era, when assistant salaries didn’t seem to keep up with the Sooners’ blue-blood contemporaries.
The Board of Regents also approved Riley’s contract extension and raise, which makes him the highest-paid coach in the Big 12. He will make an average of $6.5 million over the life of the contract, which runs through 2023.
Another guy who earned a big raise is offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh, who received a $125,000 bump to $750,000, making him one of the highest-paid o-line coaches in the country. OU’s offensive line has been one of the best in the country in recent seasons — it won the Joe Moore Award this past season as the best — but Bedenbaugh will have his work cut out for him in 2019, when he’ll have to replace four starters.
But the most pressure is on Grinch, the new $1.4 million man; he will be expected to fix a defense that hasn’t been good in years and was absolutely abysmal in 2018. The Sooners finished 101st nationally in scoring defense, 114th in total defense, 102nd in yards-per-play allowed, 119th in third-down defense, 127th in red-zone defense and 130th — last — in pass defense.
Defense has been the thing holding back OU — nationally, at least — as Riley’s offense has put up huge numbers and produced consecutive Heisman-winning quarterbacks. With Jalen Hurts transferring from Alabama, the Sooners’ offense seems likely to still rank among the nation’s best in 2019, even with Hurts’ limitations as a passer relative to Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray.
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The Sooners’ defense returns almost every 2018 starter and is adding a bevy of top-flight talent in the 2019 recruiting class. But while the defensive talent hasn’t been perfect over the past few years, that hasn’t been the biggest problem on that side of the ball. Former defensive coordinator Mike Stoops had lost the locker room well before his midseason firing, and a culture problem clearly existed. The defense often was out of position and confused, and — most damningly — seemed to almost always lack the fire and effort needed to play defense at a high level.
But with Grinch, effort is everything. And his first order of business is fixing that attitude.
One way to do that is by emphasizing takeaways, which is Grinch’s bread and butter. His entire defensive philosophy revolves around getting the ball back for the offense — and, boy, does that need improving. Oklahoma’s 2018 defense had just 11 takeaways, which is the lowest in recorded school history.
Grinch has crunched the numbers and believes forcing 24 takeaways equals nine wins. Considering Oklahoma has dominated the Big 12 and won fewer than 10 games just three times in the past 19 seasons, an aggressive defense that produces takeaways at a high clip could be the thing that pushes the Sooners to the next level. The next level, of course, is the national championship, which Oklahoma hasn’t won since 2000.
“Regardless of any other statistic in football,” Grinch said earlier this month, “whether offense, defense, total offense, scoring defense — you can name ’em all … 24 is kind of that magic number.”
The magic number Wednesday, though, was 1.4 million.
