Iowa pays for Ken O'Keefe's wealth of experience

IOWA CITY — When Kirk Ferentz introduced Ken O'Keefe as his new quarterbacks coach on Feb. 5, he acknowledged O'Keefe's importance in the formative years.

When Ferentz was hired as Iowa's head coach in late 1998, O'Keefe, who jumped to Iowa after just one season as Fordham (Bronx, N.Y.) University's head coach, was one of his first hires. Ferentz was an assistant under O'Keefe at Wooster (Mass.) Academy in 1978-79. That bond continued for 13 seasons at Iowa, when O'Keefe was Ferentz's offensive coordinator.

After the 2011 season, O'Keefe took a job with the Miami Dolphins, where he spent the last five seasons in jobs ranging from wide receivers coach to senior football research analyst. Now in 2017, Ferentz again will lean on O'Keefe.

'His depth of experience, his wealth of experience,' Ferentz said Feb. 5. 'Not only in terms of the positions he's held, but the various level he's coached at. He's going to be an outstanding resource for everybody on our staff. He was the guy I leaned hardest on 18 years ago.'

And that's going to pay extremely well.

According to documents obtained by The Gazette on Tuesday, O'Keefe will make $540,000 as Iowa's quarterbacks coach. The salary is news in and of itself.

When O'Keefe left Iowa in 2011, he made just more than $300,000 as offensive coordinator. Last season, former offensive coordinator Greg Davis, defensive coordinator Phil Parker and strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle made $625,000 apiece.

O'Keefe also received a three-year contract, which is unprecedented at Iowa. O'Keefe's contract began Feb. 2 and runs through June 30, 2020. That's three seasons for a total payout of $1.62 million. Also, O'Keefe will have use of a courtesy car.

Iowa had stayed away from multiyear contracts for football assistants until last fall. In his new contract with Iowa, Ferentz has a clause that states assistants who've been at Iowa for five or more years are eligible for two-year contracts.

On Jan. 9, Brian Ferentz was moved from offensive line coach to offensive coordinator. As it stands at the moment, the UI hasn't termed this a 'promotion' but a 'reassignment of duties within the same job classification.' Brian Ferentz's salary remains $425,000. When Kirk Ferentz announced Brian's appointment to offensive coordinator, he was vague on the contract details. The Iowa staff was in the midst of finishing the 2017 recruiting class, so that's probably next on the administrative agenda and the salary likely will go up.

'(Brian) gets a little bigger office. That's the good news,' Kirk Ferentz said Jan. 9. 'The bad news is it's right next to mine. ... But he's still on our staff, so there's nothing official on this whole thing (the move to coordinator). We'll wait till we get everything together and then we'll figure all that stuff out.'