Bob Stoops' Salary Raises NFL Eyebrows

Notes on a trip to the NFL Scouting Combine.

There's a story at the bottom of Page 4C of the weekend edition of USA Today headlined, "Oklahoma's Stoops set to earn $6 million in '08." It's a short story that ordinarily wouldn't garner much attention.

But 32 NFL head coaches and a few hundred assistants are in Indianapolis right now, staying in hotels that give them free copies of USA Today, and I've heard a few NFL coaches taking note of the story, which details the compensation given to Oklahoma head football coach Bob Stoops.

There's a sense, at least among a couple of NFL coaches, that if Stoops is worth $6 million a year, NFL coaches must be worth more than that. After all, while Oklahoma's football program brings in a lot of money, it doesn't make nearly as much as NFL teams make.

Of course, Oklahoma doesn't have to bother with that pesky little NFL problem known as "paying the players," so more money can go to Stoops. But there's no doubt that NFL coaches are taking note of what their college brethren are making.