Todd Monken reportedly the highest-paid assistant coach in CFB
Todd Monken is highly thought of by his employer, the University of Georgia. USA Today dropped its’ annual list of assistant coach salaries on Thursday and Monken is atop the list, making $2,005,000 a year.
As fortune would have it, the nation’s second-highest-paid assistant coach will be trying to make Monken look bad in a few weeks. Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles holds that spot with a salary of $1.9 million. The Bulldogs and Buckeyes will play in the College Football Playoff semifinal/Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl on December 31 at 8 p.m. ET (ESPN).
Monken, 56, is in his third season at Georgia. The Bulldogs are going for back-to-back National Championships due in large part to the boost Monken has brought to the offense. Monken has done it while extracting a ton of production out of former walk-on quarterback Stetson Bennett.
Bennett has continued to progress under Monken’s watch and went from not being a part of the plan and buried on the depth chart to Heisman Trophy Finalist and 3,400-yard passer. The Bulldogs are also in the top 15 nationally in pass offense, rush offense, total offense, and scoring offense.
The Bulldogs were pass-first early in the year when Bennett was averaging just at 300 yards per game. They went ground-heavy late in the year to shorten games and what amounted to running the clock out on the regular season. Georgia turned it back on against a more formidable LSU team in the SEC Championship game and posted a 50-30 victory.
The veteran assistant coach was up for the Broyles Award earlier this week. TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley took the award home but Monken was given a chance to speak. He didn’t pat himself on the back much, if at all. Instead, he had a lot to say about the situation he walked into at UGA.
Jim Harbaugh’s jab at Ryan Day last offseason, the one where the former said that some coaches are born on third base and thought they hit a triple, came up in Monken’s speech without mentioning any names. Monken says that he thought about that anecdote and getting to third base that way didn’t sound so bad.
“A chance to come to Georgia, landed on third base,” Monken said on Tuesday. “I wasn’t like TCU. It wasn’t like at Knoxville. I came into a culture that was already established, had really good players, and all we had to do was fight like hell to make it better. And that doesn’t mean my whole career I’ve landed on third base, for God’s sakes. I worked my ass off, OK? Let’s at least be honest here. But I am very appreciative of opportunities that I’ve gotten and one thing about it is that I’m a just byproduct of our players, Kirby Smart and the culture, and our coaching staff.”
