Michigan Football: Coaches should get bonuses for beating Ohio State

Michigan football gave lucrative new contracts to a slew of assistant coaches including a number of bonuses. But the bonus should be for beating Ohio State.

One thing has held back Michigan football since the arrival of head coach Jim Harbaugh and that’s the fact that the Wolverines can’t beat Ohio State.

You can talk all you want about Michigan football not winning the Big Ten or making the College Football Playoff, but if you delve into why the Wolverines haven’t achieved either of those things and the culprit, once again, is the inability to beat Ohio State.

If Michigan beats the Buckeyes in 2016, it more than likely wins the Big Ten and is playing in the College Football Playoff. The same is true for 2018. Even back in 2015, UM could have played itself into a major bowl game, however, Ohio State had other plans.

So when the news surfaced that the University of Michigan extended the contracts of assistant coaches Ed Warriner and Don Brown and included bonuses for winning nine games, fans didn’t react all that well. They mocked it as the new goal of the program.

To be fair, some of them probably didn’t read the full details reported on by Nick Baumgardner of the Detroit Free Press, because coaches also get a bonus of an additional 75K for each win up to No.12. That’s a pretty solid incentive.

If the Wolverines win 12 games, Warriner, Brown and Josh Gattis would earn an additional $300k in salary. But it might be a nice idea to just give coaches a $300k bonus for simply beating Ohio State.

That might sound ridiculous and it would probably never happen, however, if you think about it, Michigan is going to have a hard time winning games 11 and 12 without ever beating the Buckeyes.

At least, winning 11 or 12 games without beating Ohio State won’t mean much because it will likely mean Michigan football won’t win the Big Ten or make the College Football Playoff.

Michigan came close last season to playing for the conference championship last season without a win over the Buckeyes, as a Maryland win over Ohio State would have sent the Wolverines to Indianapolis. Yet, winning the Big Ten one week after a humiliating loss would have felt unsatisfactory.

Certainly, Michigan football has goals beyond beating Ohio State. All the resources are there to compete with any program in the country. But until the Wolverines start competing better against Ohio State and actually beating the Buckeyes, none of that will matter.

Coaching contracts should be realistic and the incentives should be too. That’s why starting the bonus at nine games is probably ideal from a practical sense. I just don’t think any fan would be upset to see the football program puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to Ohio State.