College football: Preseason favorites and coach salaries

Remember the Parade magazine question that I blogged about: Are college coaches overpaid? Hey, let us take that to the next level, and look at the millions they earn. The following is ESPN's 2008 preseason ranking, along with the respective coach's name and compensation (from coacheshotseat.com). Contrast these coach salaries against the average faculty salaries in Oregon's colleges and universities. Oh well ....

Rank	School	Coach	Compensation (million $)
1	Georgia	Mark Richt	2.8
2	Southern California	Pete Carroll	3.8
3	Ohio State	Jim Tressel	2.6
4	Oklahoma	Bob Stoops	3.5
5	Florida	Urban Meyer	3.4
6	LSU	Les Miles	3.75
7	Missouri	Gary Pinkel	1.85
8	West Virginia	Bill Stewart	0.8
9	Clemson	Tommy Bowden	1.85
10	Texas	Mack Brown	2.91
11	Auburn	Tommy Tuberville	2.83
12	Wisconsin	Bret Bielema	1.4
13	Kansas	Mark Mangino	2.3
14	Texas Tech	Mike Leach	1.75
15	Virginia Tech	Frank Beamer	2.1
16	Arizona State	Dennis Erickson	1.1
17	BYU	Bronco Mendenhall	1
18	Tennessee	Philip Fulmer	2.4
19	Illinois	Ron Zook	1.35
20	Oregon	Mike Bellotti	2.1
21	South Florida	Jim Leavitt	1.5
22	Penn State	Joe Paterno	1.5
23	Wake Forest	Jim Grobe	1.2
24	Michigan	Rich Rodriguez	2.5
25	Fresno State	Pat Hill	1.23