Support Staff

IMHO, you can bet $$$ this is one of the biggest issues the ACC is behind on.  No statistics, but this is where the arms race is currently focused.

FSU is painted positively here, but I know FSU has about 1/3 of the staff Bama does.


http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17164115/alabama-crimson-tide-nick-saban-lead-revolution-size-college-football-coaching-staffs


"A Florida support staff member paces near the 50-yard line, staring across the field of the Georgia Dome. It's December and the SEC Championship Game will begin in an hour -- No. 18 Florida vs. No. 2 Alabama. Players from both teams warm up, yet it's not an athlete who has this young, up-and-coming coach's attention. He looks over at the opposing sideline and marvels at the size of the crimson-clad throng of coaches at Nick Saban's beck and call.
Florida is outnumbered, again.
It's no less shocking than a week earlier, he says, when he was struck by the disparity in the number of coaches when they hosted Florida State to end the regular season. But instead of Saban, it was former Saban assistant Jimbo Fisher who had a king-sized support staff at his disposal, a flood of graduate assistants, analysts, quality control and player personnel-types.
Of course they weren't the reason Florida lost to its in-state rival by three touchdowns -- only the head coach and nine assistant coaches participate in the execution of the game -- but there was no escaping this staffer's belief that manpower had something to do with each program's standing. They'd go on to lose to Alabama, too, and afterward the thought of doing more with less felt antiquated and impractical.
It's wild to think about, a behemoth like Florida being behind anyone in terms of resources, but there's some truth to it. There's an arms race taking place in college football that has even the most distinguished of programs feeling as if they're a step behind. And you can thank Saban for not just being ahead of the curve, but throwing the first curve to begin with.
Fast-forward four months and Jim McElwain is in his office on the Florida campus, slouched in a chair with his feet resting on a coffee table. He explains why he made expanding the support staff a priority when he was hired late in 2014, but he's not bullish on their current numbers. "We're far from having as many as a lot of people have," he says.
Not counting nine assistant coaches, there are 20 people listed in the staff directory, including directors of football administration, player personnel, player development and external communication. There are three graduate assistants, three quality control coaches and three program assistants. One such program assistant -- a role that typically goes to coaches breaking into the profession -- is Bret Ingalls, who was hired this offseason after spending the past seven years as a running back and offensive line coach for the New Orleans Saints."

"The desire for more man power is met by seemingly unlimited budgets. There's no such thing as being over-qualified anymore. These days you can't find a perennial top-25 program without a fully stocked staff, while traditionally second-tier programs are pushing to expand theirs. Tom Herman, who made his name as offensive coordinator at Ohio State before becoming head coach at Houston, said if the budget were there, "I'd take an army.""