USA TODAY International Edition
Iowa pays strength coach $ 600K
Doyle’s salary equals those of coordinators
There is now a major- college football strength and conditioning coach making nearly $ 600,000 a year: Iowa’s Chris Doyle.
Doyle will make $ 595,000 in base compensation from the university for a one- year period that began July 1, according to information provided by the school in response to an openrecords request from USA TODAY Sports. Doyle’s compensation reflects a raise of $ 80,000, or 15.5%, over his pay from last year, and it matches the basic amounts that Hawkeyes offensive coordinator Greg Davis and defensive coordinator Phil Parker are scheduled to make.
Doyle is being paid more than double the amounts going to many of his Big Ten Conference peers and $ 70,000 more than what reigning national champion Alabama’s Scott Cochran is being paid. It’s also greater than what 29 Football Bowl Subdivision public school head coaches made last season in basic pay.
Doyle, 48, has been Iowa’s strength coach for each of Kirk Ferentz’s 18 years atop Iowa’s program.
“Most of the people who follow our program know that what’s very important to Kirk is student- athlete development — physically, mentally, leadership,” Iowa athletics director Gary Barta said Monday. “He relies heavily on Chris’ role in that.”
A strength coach at a Power Five conference school getting paid on par with his team’s offensive and defensive coordinators likely is unique to Iowa, which after the 2014 season opened the $ 55 million Stew and LeNore Hansen Football Performance Center — with a 23,000- square- foot weight room as the centerpiece.
Alabama, which increased Cochran’s pay by 25% in June, is paying offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin $ 714,000 and defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt $ 1 million.
“Kirk approaches the role of strength and conditioning coach as really another coordinator,” Barta said. “We have an offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator, and then student- athlete development is the third piece of that equation.”
Doyle often says other programs collect talent while Iowa builds it — often with two- and three- star recruits. The Hawkeyes have long emphasized developmental methods, producing Outland Trophy winners Robert Gallery and Brandon Scherff. Since 2003, NFL teams have drafted five former Iowa walk- ons.
“The fact of the matter is it’s the best strength and conditioning job in football — college or pro,” Doyle told The Des Moines Register of the USA TODAY Network in May. “It’s supported from the top down.”
Doyle has seen his share of turmoil. In 2011, he was in national headlines after one of his workouts resulted in 13 Iowa players being hospitalized with rhabdomyolysis — a potentially fatal condition in which dead muscle fibers are emptied into the bloodstream. Ferentz supported Doyle ( a university investigation found no negligence), and Iowa has more than doubled Doyle’s pay since.
According to the terms of Ferentz’s contract, Iowa’s 2015 success helped pave the way for across- the- board increases for his assistants. By achieving a top- 10 national ranking, a bowl appearance and meeting graduation requirements, the pool for assistant coach salaries grew by 14%.