Staff Raises Further Proof That Alabama Has Lane Kiffin at a Bargain

Call it a raise, call it a market adjustment or call it "the offseason," but June is the time where assistant coaches learn just how much they're worth for the upcoming football season. 

In Alabama's case, the assistants are worth quite a bit.

According to AL.com's Michael Casagrande, six of the Crimson Tide's seven returning assistants got extensions and raises approved. Defensive coordinator Kirby Smart jumped from $1.35 million to $1.5 million per year (thanks in part to the beefy contracts of John Chavis and Will Muschamp), offensive line coach Mario Cristobal jumped from $500,000 to $515,000 and new defensive backs coach Mel Tucker saw his new $500,000 deal finalized.

Who's the one assistant who didn't get a bump?

Oh, just the guy who helped set the program record for total offense in 2014 with 484.5 yards per game—offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin.

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Kiffin's salary won't budge from last season's figure of $680,000. That's neither a big deal nor an indication of Kiffin's relationship with head coach Nick Saban or Alabama. 

As Casagrande notes, Kiffin is still being paid his buyout as head coach from USC, and whatever Alabama pays him will only cut away at what USC is paying him so long as his Alabama salary doesn't exceed his buyout figure. 

What. A. Bargain.

According to last year's USA Today assistant coaching salary database, that figure put Kiffin behind former Texas A&M defensive coordinator Mark Snyder—who coordinated the worst defense in the conference (450.8 YPG), former Florida offensive coordinator Kurt Roper—who coordinated the SEC's third-worst offense (367.6 YPG) and wasn't retained by the new staff, and current LSU defensive coordinator Kevin Steele—who was a position coach on the same staff as Kiffin in 2014.

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Not only is Alabama benefiting from Kiffin's USC buyout, but it isn't forced to give him market corrections based on success or the going rate of top-tier offensive coordinators.

Does Kiffin deserve some heat for what happened in the Allstate Sugar Bowl national semifinal loss to Ohio State?

Maybe.

It might have been a smart idea to run a little bit more in the second half, but the Blake Sims-Amari Cooper connection worked well all year, so why not try to keep it going on the game's biggest stage. Frankly, it'd have been much more helpful that night for Saban and Smart to figure out a way to slow down Ohio State's offense.

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Kiffin is a lightning rod and will take the blame. But you can't deny just how good he was last year for the Tide. After all, why else would he be named a finalist for the Broyles Award given to the best assistant in college football?

He took a quarterback in Sims—who once played running back during his time in Tuscaloosa—and made him a bona fide weapon, essentially on the fly, as the season progressed.

He helped launch Cooper, who was already one of the best wide receivers in the country, into a Heisman Trophy finalist. That's an enormous leap for a wide receiver for the increasingly quarterback-driven award.

You might hear over the next few days or weeks that the absence of a raise for Kiffin is a sign that there's trouble in paradise or that Saban doesn't have faith in his second-year offensive coordinator. Don't be fooled by the noise.

Alabama is getting Kiffin at a bargain.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats are courtesy of cfbstats.com unless otherwise noted, and all recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports' composite rankings.

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and college football video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on Sirius 93, XM 208.

Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.