Here’s how much Boise State is paying its assistant coaches; Broncos add Memphis series
Defensive coordinator Spencer Danielson will be the highest-paid assistant on the staff of new Boise State football coach Andy Avalos.
Danielson’s base salary is expected to be $280,000 this year, according to documents released Wednesday morning by Boise State.
Boise State’s coaches and new athletic director Jeramiah Dickey have signed material term sheets, which still must be approved by the Idaho State Board of Education.
Danielson was scheduled to make $275,000 last year as co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach, and he was named interim head coach after Bryan Harsin left for Auburn on Dec. 22.
Boise State’s coaches made less than expected last year because of furloughs and salary reductions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding made $349,999 last year and was Boise State’s highest-paid assistant, as well as one of the top-paid assistant coaches in the Mountain West. Only Wyoming’s Brent Vigen made more, at $350,000, according to a database maintained by USA Today.
New offensive coordinator Tim Pough isn’t far behind Danielson at $270,000 this year, and longtime Utah State assistant Frank Maile, assistant head coach/defensive line coach for BSU, is expected to make $260,000 in his first season with the Broncos.
Offensive line coach Tim Keane and special teams coordinator Stacy Collins are both expected to make $225,000, while co-defensive coordinator Kane Ioane comes in at $200,000.
Cornerbacks coach Jeron Johnson — a former player for the Seahawks, who has no coaching experience at the college level — is expected to be the Broncos’ lowest-paid assistant, at $110,000.
Tight ends coach Kent Riddle will take a pay cut after making $265,000 last year while also carrying the associate head coach and offensive chief of staff titles. He’ll make $225,000 this year.
The other holdovers from Harsin’s staff — wide receivers coach Matt Miller and running backs coach Winston Venable — are also taking pay cuts. Both joined the staff as full-time assistants last year, with Miller making $180,000 and Venable $125,000. Under their new deals, Miller’s base salary is expected to be $160,000 and Venable’s $115,000.
All of the term sheets signed by Boise State’s assistant coaches also include up to $20,000 in incentive bonuses.
Avalos’ first deal at Boise State is for five years and will pay him a base salary of $1.4 million in its first year. The terms of the contract included a salary pool of $2.1 million for assistant coaches, and it will increase every year by $50,000.
Dickey’s initial contract is also for five years, with a base salary of $410,000. His deal includes an annual raise of at least 2% of his base salary and up to $35,000 in incentive bonuses.
Broncos add series with Memphis
The Boise State football team announced a future series with one of the other top Group of Five programs in the country on Wednesday.
The Broncos will travel to Memphis for a game at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium on Aug. 31, 2030. It will be the first time the programs have ever met on the football field. The Tigers will return the favor the following season with a game at Albertsons Stadium on Sept. 13, 2031.
According to the terms of the game contract, the series will not include the usual guaranteed payout to the visiting team. The visitors will get 400 complimentary tickets, and the contract dictates that the home team must wear light-colored uniforms — meaning the Broncos won’t be able to wear their blue uniforms on the blue turf in Albertsons Stadium.
The top-ranked team in the Group of Five gets a bid to a New Year’s Six bowl game every year. Last season, it was Cincinnati, which topped Memphis in the American Athletic Conference and finished the regular season ranked No. 8. The Bearcats lost to Georgia in the Peach Bowl.
In 2019, Memphis beat Cincinnati in the AAC championship game and finished the regular season ranked No. 17 before falling to No. 10 Penn State in the Cotton Bowl. A team from the AAC has earned the New Year’s Six bid in five of the past six seasons. The only team not from the AAC to earn one during that span was the MAC’s Western Michigan, which lost in the 2016 Cotton Bowl.
Boise State last appeared in a New Year’s Six game in 2014, a 38-30 win over Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl.
Memphis finished 8-3 last season and beat Florida Atlantic in the Montgomery Bowl. The Tigers have played in a bowl game every season since 2014.
Boise State will face several teams from the AAC in the coming years. The 2021 season features a game at UCF. The Broncos will host UCF in 2023 and Houston in 2024, and they’ll travel to South Florida (USF) and Houston in 2025. USF is scheduled to come to Boise in 2027, and the Broncos will host Cincinnati in 2028 before hitting the road to face the Bearcats in 2029.
The Broncos’ 2021 nonconference schedule also includes home games against UTEP (Sept. 11) and Oklahoma State (Sept. 18), and a road game at BYU (Oct. 9).
BSU begins a pair of home-and-home series with Oregon State and Michigan State in 2022. Both are on the schedule again in 2023.
Boise State’s future schedules also include Georgia Southern, Oregon, East Carolina, Rice, Washington State and a road trip to Marshall, which was rescheduled to 2027 after it was canceled last season because of COVID-19. It comes with a guaranteed payment of $300,000, according to the game contract.
Williams wins Jet Award
Two-time Mountain West Special Teams Player of the Year Avery Williams was honored again Wednesday, winning the Jet Award, which goes to the top return specialist in the country.
The award is named after 1972 Heisman Trophy winner Johnny “The Jet” Rodgers, of Nebraska fame.
Williams earned consensus All-American and first-team All-Mountain West honors this year after leading the nation in 2020 with four special teams touchdowns. The native of Pasadena, California, was also named first-team all-conference as a cornerback, kick returner and punt returner.
He was named the conference’s special teams player of the year for the second straight season after returning two kickoffs and one punt for touchdowns, recovering a punt he blocked in the end zone, and blocking a field goal attempt. In 2019, he returned two punts for touchdowns and led the Mountain West with 13.2 yards per punt return.
On Christmas Eve, Williams announced that he will not return this year and instead declared for the NFL Draft.
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 12:48 PM.
