Support Staff changes

https://floridastate.n.rivals.com/news/support-staffs-part-of-the-cost-of-doing-business

"According to a Florida State Football organizational chart obtained through a public records request by Warchant.com, 34 staff members report up to Jimbo Fisher. While that list includes a handful of office workers, the vast majority of those employees are either hands-on coaches or staffers who perform functions that free up additional time for the coaches.
Two of FSU's top rivals, Florida and Clemson, show similar staffing levels, according to documents obtained through public records requests.
A CBSSports.com article, published earlier this year, stated that Nick Saban started the trend when he left the Miami Dolphins and took the Alabama job in 2007. Quality control positions had become commonplace in that league over the previous two decades, and Saban believed they could have a similar impact at the college level.
Not everyone was as quick to adapt. As recently as 2009, the final season of Bobby Bowden's tenure at Florida State, the Seminoles were still sticking with the bare minimum."

"The increased staff sizes have not come without controversy. While the NCAA limits the number of on-field assistant coaches to nine, the strength and conditioning coaches to five and the graduate assistants to four, a school currently can hire as many support staffers as they are willing to pay.
Florida State, for example, has eight "quality control" staffers assigned to help coaches perform various tasks -- from breaking down film to helping with other areas of player development. While that is in line with other national powers, such as Clemson and Alabama, it is substantially larger than some of the schools in the ACC with smaller football budgets.
“There shouldn’t be any reason why one Power Five team or staff has more staff,” Boston College coach Steve Addazio complained in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article last month. "I mean, they regulate how many [graduate assistants], they regulate how many full-time coaches you can have, they should be regulating all this other nonsense, all the quality controls, interns and whatever else they call this.”
According to that AJC report, at least four Atlantic Coast Conference coaches -- Addazio, Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson, Pitt's Pat Narduzzi and North Carolina's Larry Fedora -- support limiting the number of support staff positions.
Fisher bristles at that idea. While he knows NCAA legislation could be coming, he is a staunch proponent of schools having the right to invest as much as they want in the development of their players and coaches.
"I think the more the merrier," Fisher told Warchant. "You develop young coaches. You help get guys in the business. And it makes your coaches and players better."

"While college powers in the 1990s and early 2000s often competed to build the fanciest locker rooms and football facilities, they now are squaring off when it comes to investing in the best support staffs -- even in areas such as nutrition, which is still in its infancy stages in collegiate athletics.
Since the NCAA enacted legislation allowing student-athletes to receive unlimited meals and snacks from their schools in 2014, more and more universities have been hiring full-time nutritionists and tailoring their food offerings for each sport.
FSU hired Katy Meassick as its director of sports nutrition in 2014 and invested about $1 million in salaries, food costs and construction costs to add a "nutrition fueling station" in the weight room. Two years later, the university is on the hunt for Meassick's replacement; she recently left FSU to go to work for the NFL's Cleveland Browns.
Hiring a replacement likely won't be cheap. While Meassick earned an annual salary of $66,873.95, according to figures supplied by FSU, some of her colleagues in the field are paid much more.
Jen Ketterly, the director of sports nutrition at Georgia, made $84,996 in 2015, according to the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts. Amy Bragg, the director of performance and nutrition for Alabama, earns an annual salary of $113,182, according to figures obtained by CBS Sports from the University of Alabama Division of Financial Affairs.
For comparison, Bragg makes more than the base salaries of FSU coaches Amy Bond (women's golf), Jennifer Hyde (women's tennis), Dwayne Hultquist (men's tennis), Brooke Niles (beach volleyball) and John Proctor (men's diving), according to the state of Florida's salary database for university employees.
And the demand for nutritionists figures to push those salaries higher. Since late May, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Iowa, Notre Dame, Penn State and others have sought new staffers for their sports nutrition departments."

"He said it's one of the reasons he pays attention to the expansive revenues being generated by other conferences' television contracts and is hopeful that FSU and the ACC will be able to remain at the forefront.
"I do think it's something we have to jump out and look at," Fisher said. "Because we have to find ways to keep up. It's not just about your players and 10 coaches that you have. It's about the support staff. It's about the things in the program that develop players. ...
"The more enhancements you can have, which takes money, is going to be the development of those kids, which in turn is going to be the development of your program."



https://floridastate.forums.rivals.com/threads/expanded-support-staffs-the-new-arms-race-in-college-football.131955/

"Not sure that's the case. Keep in mind that 10-20 years ago the difference was a million or two per year between FSU and its rivals. Now, you are looking at $10-20 million per year. Big difference.

While FSU has somewhat kept up in this department it's sounding like that's starting to change. Been told that FSU didn't have the budget to give Katy Meassick a competitive counter-offer, which she would have accepted. And most other competitors are going to a football-only nutritionist, instead of all-sports one like FSU. Also, some academic support staff has been lost as well. There are some initial signs that FSU is not keeping up with the Joneses when it comes to support staff, and that's a function of finances being limited .Bottom line, FSU simply doesn't have the same athletic budget for football as SEC and B1G schools. "

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