Oregon State coach Trent Bray can spend up to $4.85 million on assistant coaches this upcoming season.Ali Gradischer for The Oregonian/OregonLive
Oregon State will provide football coach Trent Bray with a $4.85 million assistant coaches salary pool for the 2025 season.
That number remains level with OSU’s commitment to Bray for the 2024 season, athletic director Scott Barnes told The Oregonian/OregonLive. The assistant coaches’ salary pool during coach Jonathan Smith’s final year in 2023 was $4.75 million.
The salary pool doesn’t mean all the money is spent. Barnes said OSU paid $4.42 million in assistant coaches salaries last year.
Eight of the 10 assistant coaches from 2024 are currently returning for the 2025 season. The two who have left are running backs coach Thomas Ford, now head coach at Idaho, and tight ends coach Jon Boyer, now quarterbacks coach at Michigan State. It’s not publicly known if other OSU assistants are in the mix for coaching positions at other college program or the NFL.
The eight returning coaches – Jamie Christian (special teams), AJ Cooper (inside linebackers), Anthony Perkins (defensive backs), Kyle Devan (offensive line), Kefense Hynson (receivers), Ilaisa Tuiaka (defensive line), Ryan Gunderson (offensive coordinator), Keith Heyward (defensive coordinator) – are slated to make a combined $3.615 million next season. All are working on the second year of a two-year contract, for the same salary as 2024.
That leaves about $1.2 million to hire two new assistant coaches, as well as additional compensation should any of the current coaches negotiate a new contract.
On another monetary front, Barnes said Oregon State is changing the method in which it deals with scholarships and athlete benefits. Rather than dedicate money for a specific number of scholarships, Barnes said the school will provide a set amount of money annually for each sport, which he referred to as a “student-athlete benefits bucket.” The dollar figure for each sport has yet to be determined.
Through this year, football programs in FBS were allowed to have up to 85 players on scholarship. That number will increase to a maximum 105 scholarships. Barnes said through their research, “we aren’t hearing that folks are increasing scholarships much” for next year.
The head coach for each Oregon State athletics program will have discretion to use money allocated in their “benefits bucket,” in consultation with Barnes. The pool of money will be used for any benefits allowed in the upcoming House settlement, including new scholarships, Alston payments and in-house NIL (name, image and likeness).
For the 2024-25 school year, a full scholarship for in-state athletes cost $35,000, while for out-of-state it is $59,000. It won’t be until March that OSU will know the numbers for 2025-26.
—Nick Daschel can be reached at 360-607-4824, ndaschel@oregonian.com or @nickdaschel.
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