UK’s Vince Marrow could be highest-paid non-coordinator in SEC next season
Vince Marrow is now one of the highest-paid assistant coaches in college football.
The newest contract agreement between the University of Kentucky and Marrow, UK’s associate head coach, among other roles, and the school was made available Monday.
Marrow is now set to make $900,000 annually ($75,000 per month) through June 30, 2023. That is an increase of $250,000 based on the highest maximum salary ($650,000) his previous contract would have granted through the end of its term. Marrow’s new agreement runs one year longer than his previous deal with Kentucky.
There is one other new wrinkle in Marrow’s latest amendment: previously, if head coach Mark Stoops were to resign or retire from the profession, Marrow was entitled to six month’s worth of salary. Under the new agreement, Marrow will receive a full year’s salary if Stoops were to resign or retire.
Marrow — who’s also Kentucky’s recruiting coordinator, tight ends coach and NFL liaison — this fall will make as much money as Eddie Gran, Kentucky’s co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach. Defensive coordinator Brad White, who also coaches outside linebackers, is set to make $875,000 next season. All three could be among the top-40 highest-paid assistants in the country next season, and Marrow projects to be the highest-paid non-coordinator in the Southeastern Conference next season. (Next on the list would be Will Friend, Tennessee’s offensive line coach, who made $805,000 last season and whose current contract does not call for an increase in salary for the 2020 season.)
Of those three UK assistants, only Marrow has been on Stoops’ staff since 2013, when he took the reins at Kentucky. Marrow announced his decision to stay at UK on Friday after Michigan State attempted to pry him out of Lexington.
“I have been here for eight years now, and there’s been a lot of opportunities now to go other places,” Marrow told reporters Saturday. “I really like what we have built here.”
According to USA Today’s database of assistant coaches’ salaries, only two non-coordinators in college football had a salary last season that matched what Marrow now makes annually: Sam Pittman, who was the offensive line coach at Georgia, and Larry Johnson, the defensive line coach and associate head coach at Ohio State. Pittman was hired to be the head coach at Arkansas in December.
Marrow made $600,000 last season, making him the 95th-highest paid assistant coach in the country.
