South Carolina head football coach Will Muschamp and his coaching are expected to receive raises in the next month.
South Carolina Board of Trustees members met Tuesday with Gamecocks athletics director Ray Tanner in an executive session conference call to discuss raises for head football coach Will Muschamp and his assistant coaches.
“It was strictly a conversation as it was intended to be,” Tanner said after that meeting.
Tanner expects that conversation to bear fruit for the Gamecocks coaches by USC’s regularly scheduled board meeting on Feb. 9.
“I would hope that certainly that would be the latest date,” he said.
A source told The State in December that Muschamp, who made $3.1 million in his first two years at the school, will receive a raise and contract extension from the school this offseason. Tanner said in December that he expected all of the team’s assistants to see boosts in pay as well.
South Carolina finished 9-4 in Muschamp’s second season as head coach, and the Gamecocks have notched three-win improvements in back-to-back seasons for the first time in school history. He is 15-11 in his first two years at the school and is expected to receive an annual salary close to or above $3.5 million in his new deal.
South Carolina paid Muschamp’s assistant coaches a total of $4 million in 2017, making them the 17th-highest paid staff in college football. Defensive coordinator Travaris Robinson ($750,000 annually) was the highest-paid assistant on the staff. The second-highest, former offensive coordinator Kurt Roper, was paid $700,000 annually before he was fired this month.
Wide receivers coach Bryan McClendon, who was promoted to full-time offensive coordinator Friday, made $500,000 last year. Veteran college assistant Dan Werner was hired last week as quarterbacks coach. Werner served as an offensive analyst for Alabama this season and is expected to begin work in Columbia this week.
The remainder of the staff includes: defensive line coach Lance Thompson ($500,000), offensive line coach Eric Wolford ($500,000), special teams coordinator and linebackers coach Coleman Hutzler ($350,000), running backs coach Bobby Bentley, who is serving as quarterbacks coach for the bowl game ($300,000), linebackers coach Mike Peterson ($200,000) and tight ends coach Pat Washington ($200,000).
An NCAA rule change allows college football teams to hire a 10 th on-field assistant coach for the 2018 season, and Muschamp is expected to name that coach this week.
