Report: Money for Gophers assistant football coaches reaches new high in 2025

This time last year there were a lot of questions about the Gophers coordinators. Fast-forward 12 months, there seems to be plenty of stability and the University of Minnesota has increased its assistant coach salary pool by more than $1 million.

With the dust settled around the #Gophers staff, I did my annual dive into their 2025 contracts.

A look at who makes what (including Fleck), which assistants have multi-year deals, and more.

A new high for the football assistant salary pool!https://t.co/dW3EfaNGcB
— Ryan Burns (@RyanBurnsMN) January 10, 2025

Ryan Burns from 247Sports wrote his annual article analyzing Minnesota's contract details for the upcoming season and the assistant coaches will be making a combined $5.5 million, which is a record for the school. He did a great job detailing the specifics of every coach's contract.

Some things that stand out are that defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman saw a dramatic increase in salary from $800k last season to $1.2 million in 2025. Offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh Jr. will make $730k in 2025, according to Burns, which will likely keep him near the bottom of the Big Ten.

Last offseason, Minnesota saw longtime defensive coordinator Joe Rossi leave within the conference to accept the same role at Michigan State. It was clear that a significant pay raise had a lot to do with that move. Even though the Gophers are increasing the assistant coach salary pool, they they still rank near the bottom of the Big Ten.

For context, Ohio State and Georgia's assistant coach salary pool was more than $10 million in 2024, while Wisconsin was at $5.3 million and Iowa was at $7.9 million, according to USA Today's assistant coach database.

There are still a lot of moving parts on coaching staffs across the country, and we'll likely see increased salary pools at many schools, but the Gophers increasing pay should not go unnoticed.

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