Horse Latitudes #8 -- Iowa is the Cubs

There is no correlation between assistant coaches salaries and where your team sits in the Big Ten pecking order.

It just kind of works out that way. I'd lean to the fact that there are schools that have money and there are schools that don't have as much money. Ohio State and Michigan are the Yankees. Indiana and Purdue are the Florida Marlins.

Iowa? Let's see, at No. 5, the Hawkeyes are just above the median. In MLB, the Chicago Cubs are just about the median ranking No. 14 with total salaries of $104,150,726.

So, Iowa is the Cubs.

Go to this Detroit Free Press post for the numbers. Michigan State beat reporter Joe Rexrode, the quintessential beat reporter, put lots of work into this. (Usual B1G members, Northwestern and Penn State, are missing. NU I understand. It's a private school. Penn State, I don't get it. Talk about a school that should be transparent. Penn State, secrecy has not served you well.)

The fact that a Michigan State beat reporter is writing this story should tell you something. The Spartans are, of course, in a Cold War-style arms race to stay neck and neck (or at least appear to stay neck and neck) with Michigan. Mark Dantonio has made steps in this. He's got Michigan in its best shape since Nick Saban left (not saying a lot, but still, MSU football is strong despite last year's 6-6).

This is a story that tells itself, really. Check the corresponding post on the analysis. It's great to be Huskers OC Tim Beck. It's great to be Beck because there's a vigorous market for Beck's services. Nebraska fought to keep him. I mean paid to keep him. Either way, that's the business model.

It's also good to be MSU DC Pat Narduzzi. It's good to be him because he's built consistently great defenses and a market for himself. MSU and Dantonio fought to keep him. That's how it's supposed to work.

Iowa ranks fifth, just behind Wisconsin and just ahead of Michigan State (for those who listen to the On Iowa podcast, you know those are the three I measure together on a consistent basis, three polar bears fighting for the same chunk of ice).

A couple notes:

-- Kirk Ferentz is ranked second in salary ($3.835 million a year) behind Ohio State's Urban Meyer ($4.3 million).

-- Iowa is second in head coach/assistant coach salaries combined.

-- Iowa doesn't get an assistant in the top 10 as far as pay goes.

-- Iowa's coordinators -- Greg Davis and Phil Parker -- each make $325,000 and are tied for ninth in the league for OC and DCs.

These are the latest salaries for Iowa's coaches, including the three additions this winter.

Here are contracts for two of the three news coaches (the last I checked, Jim Reid's contract wasn't complete, but that is his salary):

Big Ten Linking

-- The BCS subdivision of the FBS seems to have momentum. If the Big Ten illuminati are pushing it, they aren't saying, according to CBSsports.com's Jeremy Fowler.

IMO, this has to happen. This needs to happen. The stratification of the haves and have-nots is growing in major-college football. Let's not be dense about this. Let's not go MLB.

Let's have big schools play big schools.

National Thinking

You really should check out Paul Myerberg, of USA Today, and his college football countdown.

To say they are comprehensive is an understatement.

He's up to No. 121 today and that's

Dan McCarney's North Texas State team.