College football could soon allow an unlimited number of coaches. What would it mean?

In the age of deregulation of college sports, players get paid. You have unlimited transfer options. Schools can facilitate their name, image and likeness agreements. Any team that wants to use technologies like helmet communications and sideline tablets can use them.

Next up could be the introduction of unlimited coaches.

The Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee made a proposal this spring to lift the cap on how many employees a program can have on the field coaching football, while still limiting off-campus recruiting activities to 10 assistants (or 12 in the FCS) or more become the head coach. This would mean that hundreds of analysts and quality control trainers across the country could finally get real-world coaching, bringing about a huge change for the profession.

“The landscape of college football has changed,” said former Wyoming head coach Craig Bohl, who is now executive director of the American Football Coaches Association and sits on the oversight committee. “Competitive fairness has changed.”

A similar proposal was quietly floated more than a year ago after being discussed by the NCAA's Transformation Committee, and many head coaches expected it to be adopted, even hiring coaches for assistant positions in December 2022 with the expectation that these would be up would be on the playing field. The Division I Council surprisingly rejected this.

Now it's back and Bohl and the AFCA are pushing hard for it. The Oversight Committee will vote on the matter on May 16th. If approved, it will go back to the DI Council at the end of June.

This time there seems to be more momentum for it to pass. The myth of a completely level playing field is over. Players get paid; Who cares if there are a few extra coaches on the field in practice? However, there are concerns about rising staff salaries and the possibility that the Power 4 will pull more coaches from the Group of 5 as they did with players.

After the Council's rejection last year, no one is 100% sure it will be adopted. If this is the case, it could further entrench the resource gap within the FBS. But the coaches are adamant this needs to happen now.

“This is a hill that AFCA will die on,” Bohl said.

The NCAA has had limited staffing levels for decades, an attempt to keep programs' personnel spending in check. In 2017, the number of coaches on the field was increased from nine to ten coaches.

The coaches' argument for this change is obvious. That means more real coaching jobs, which helps young coaches develop and gives older coaches more chances to stay.

“Man, I’m all for it,” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said. “I have some really good young coaches who have progressed through GA to become QC or analysts and it would be great for their development and great for us to have them coach.”

McGuire said his former quality control assistant James Lockhart IV didn't want to leave Texas Tech but had to do it for an on-field job he got in January with FCS Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

Given the freedom to expand on-field personnel, college football programs would likely follow an NFL model in which each position group would receive a second assistant, such as an assistant offensive line coach or an assistant defensive line coach. Most schools typically use their four assigned graduate assistant spots on the field to help on the offensive line, defensive line, secondary and wide receiver. The change could also create coordinators without position responsibilities and more standalone special teams coordinators.

Will schools use different recruiters and perhaps keep an older coach at home? The proposal would require off-campus recruiters to regularly attend on-site coaching sessions. (Service academies could have 14 recruiting assistants.)

There's also a compliance argument for this: the current rules are incredibly cumbersome and difficult to self-enforce, and it's well known in the industry that some schools are already ignoring them and having special team meetings led by an analyst or quality control assistant. A compliance director recounted The athlete that the compliance staff is simply too small and too busy to sit in every position room and monitor what is going on.

“One compliance department doesn’t allow anyone outside the 10 to practice, but another doesn’t pay attention to what they do,” Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield said. “The inconsistency is frustrating for the coaches when they’re doing it right.”

It's unclear how this would affect college assistants, who are unpaid employees who often start their careers with the benefit of being allowed to train on the field. This proposal also doesn't change the Individually Associated With a Prospect rule, which has made it difficult for high school coaches to transfer to college unless they get a full-time job. The IAWP rule still applies to coaches who are not off-campus recruiters.

The arguments against the proposal start with the costs. That's why the Division I council rejected it last year, a council member said The athlete. Athletic directors expect these assistants and quality control analysts will demand pay like the 10 full-time assistant coaches as their responsibilities increase, which could further drive up football costs.

This could particularly be the case if Power 4 programs hire incumbent Group 5 assistant coaches for these new jobs, which could further accelerate the already existing drain of talent in players and the transfer portal.

“There will be more unintended consequences,” Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield said. “You will see blueblood programs adding more coaches in the Group of 5. If you're a MAC wide receivers coach making $80,000 and Michigan is paying you $150,000 to be on the field, you don't have to go on the field recruiting on the road, be with you Your family together, a lot of people will.”

Few Group of 5 coaches have lost more assistants than Western Kentucky's Tyson Helton, who replaces several coaches hired elsewhere each year because of the Hilltoppers' success. But Helton supports the proposal, saying it would actually help him resupply. When Helton lost offensive coordinator Zach Kittley to Texas Tech, he promoted quality control assistant Ben Arbuckle to coordinator. He would have liked to have Arbuckle in an on-field role before taking that job. (Arbuckle left after one season to become offensive coordinator at Washington State.)

“There’s a lot of value in this,” Helton said.

Some coaches and agents wonder how much personnel movement there will be. If the rule goes into effect in June, you won't see coaches leaving their teams to take new jobs immediately before the 2024 season. Many schools already have staff who were hired with the expectation that this would succeed. The workforce is already large.

“When I was at USC and Tennessee, we coaches complained that the staff was too big,” Helton said. “You walk down the hall and you don’t know someone’s name. You will be inundated with corpses.”

There is such a thing as too many coaches. There is no limit in the NFL, but teams typically consist of around 22 or 23 personnel. Bill Belichick famously had one of the smallest staffs in the NFL with about 17 coaches in New England each year.

“Each person had a defined responsibility (in the NFL),” said Silverfield, who worked as an assistant for the Minnesota Vikings from 2008 to 2013. “The staff has grown, but there has to be a voice in the room.” There can’t be four guys coaching quarterbacks. At what point do returns start to decline?”

A separate large bill will also be due. Power 4 schools could soon have to fork out tens of millions of dollars to settle lawsuits, including House v. NCAA, and share revenue with players. Texas A&M Athletics laid off more than a dozen employees last month, citing upcoming changes in its administrative structure. Schools may not have the money to dramatically increase their staff.

On the other hand, football programs seem to be finding the money. The administration hoped pandemic-related budget cuts would dampen coaching salaries in 2020. However, they didn't do that. Georgia just gave Kirby Smart a raise to $13 million per year.

“When competing for championships, the teams that want to make it are going to find a way no matter what,” Silverfield said.

Less than a decade ago, the focus was on curbing the explosive growth of off-field coaches led by Nick Saban's army of staff at Alabama. But times have changed quickly. With college sports facing so many existential crises, the NCAA has begun rolling back regulations. Players can now do much more. Soon the trainers could too.

“I’m much more concerned about other issues in college football,” Bohl said, “than I am about an assistant quarterbacks coach.”

(Photo: Geoff Burke / USA Today)