Your favorite college football team is about to put another assistant coach on the field. Today, the NCAA passed a measure to allow teams to have 10 assistant coaches, to be hired by schools, effective Jan. 9, 2018.
Come January, the NCAA will let teams hire a 10th assistant coach
As always, the NCAA has to balance big schools and small schools.
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College coaching staffs have grown and grown under the surface in recent years with the use of types of shadow assistant staffs of analysts and quality control coaches.
With different titles, some schools also have positions coached by more than one man, for instance an inside linebackers coach and an outside linebackers coach. But the official number of on-field coaches has been capped at nine in addition to the head coach — until now. But why not just do it immediately?
As is usually the case, it boils down to money
The rationale given by the NCAA as to why this isn’t happening immediately is simple. While big schools with big budgets could add an assistant tomorrow and be fine, other schools with smaller budgets would rather plan ahead:
There are many concerns with the timing of the current immediate effective date. An April effective date is in the middle of the budget year for the membership and is late in the hiring period for a football staff. If the effective date is amended to occur to the conclusion of the 2017 football season, member institutions will have the opportunity to budget for the addition of a full-time countable coach and associated costs related to recruiting. In addition, a delayed effective date will better fit the hiring timeline for a football staff and will not require readjustments following the spring practice period.
So this solution suits pretty much everyone. The 10th assistant will happen, but it won’t happen in a way that overly inconveniences small schools.
It could, however, set off a second wave of coaching changes
Often, coaching changes take place after the regular season ends, but before Christmas. This 10th position could see major shake-ups in January, however, as coaches look to jump to better schools.
