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Whipple becomes highest paid Husker assistant; Busch's deal made public too
ByBRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON 2 hours ago
Mark Whipple will be the highest paid assistant coach the Husker football program has employed to date.
The Nebraska offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach is set to make $875,000 this year, with it escalating to $900,000 next year. It's a two-year deal. It's the most the Huskers have paid an assistant coach.
Granted, a big salary doesn't guarantee results. The previous high number was $825,000 and belonged to Bob Diaco in 2017.
But the offering to Whipple, who made $476,000 at Pitt in 2021, comes attached to a significant job and task in a critical season for Scott Frost. The Husker head coach said before hiring an offensive coordinator, “If I’m going to turn it over to somebody, I just need somebody that has done it and that I can trust to put our heads together and put the best of what they do with the best of what we do and let him run with it.”
The 64-year-old Whipple said after being hired, "I've always been a fan of college football in general, and to me (Nebraska) is one of the icons. I'm a guy that likes challenges. I've been (about) everywhere, done everything, but I haven't been to Nebraska, I haven't coached in the Big Ten. So why not?"
The contract of special teams coordinator Bill Busch was also made public this morning. The veteran assistant coach who will try to change the direction of that unit will make $400,000 and is on a two-year deal as well. Busch was making $36,000 from Nebraska last year as a defensive analyst, but was still being owed by LSU (which was paying upwards of $450,000 for him in 2021) for his time with the Tigers.
Busch does have a bit of a running start on his job since he was around the program last year and already knows the personnel.
"The one thing I'll say is I was around here last year, I saw what was done, and I saw what Coach Dawson and the rest of the staff did, and there was some unfortunate situations ... but I know what's good and what's not good and I know that our staff did an incredible job working-wise," Busch said this week on the 'Sports Nightly' radio show. "The results were not what they needed to be. We all know that. But I know that the people that were involved last year, they were all outstanding. They worked their tails off and we're going to continue to do the same thing."
The salary details for running backs coach Bryan Applewhite are not yet known. The former TCU and Colorado State assistant was officially announced on Thursday to hold that position, finalizing Frost's full-time assistant coaching staff.
As for the other new additions, Husker wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator Mickey Joseph will make $600,000 and O-line coach Donovan Raiola $325,000 according to their contracts previously released.
It would be fair to anticipate that there might be a few raises of some number for some returning defensive coaches when contracts are extended, as this the usual case around these early months every year to re-establish two-year deals for everyone.
Frost, meanwhile, is set to make $4 million this year, which is a restructured deal from the originally agreed upon $5 million, with his buyout number also going from basically $15 million to half that ($7.5 million) starting in Oct. 1 of next year
However, Frost's new contract allows him an opportunity to get back to $5 million per year starting in 2023 "in the event Coach Frost performs as head coach for the program for the 2022 season and the program achieves metrics mutually agreed to by the parties."
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