Georgia Tech opened its wallet to bring in new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Chip Long. A former Notre Dame play-caller, Long agreed to a two-year deal worth $800,000 in base salary in 2021 and $850,000 in 2022, according to information provided in response to an open-records request.
The 2021 compensation is double the $400,000 that the coach whom Long is replacing, Dave Patenaude, earned in each of the 2019 and 2020 seasons and likewise much more than the $450,000 that defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker earned in those two seasons. It almost certainly makes Long the highest-paid assistant coach on Collins’ staff. Offensive-line coach and run-game coordinator Brent Key received a two-year contract worth $650,000 annually last offseason.
It is an investment that puts Tech on par with its competition with the ACC. Last year, only four ACC assistant coaches whose salaries were publicly available made more than $800,000 in the 2020 season, according to a USA Today database. There were 44 assistant coaches from the ACC in the database who made more than Patenaude’s $400,000.
Particularly given the athletic department’s financial challenges, the deal reinforced a vow made by athletic director Todd Stansbury in a recent letter to Tech fans that “we will do what we need to do for this program to be successful under Coach Collins’ leadership.”
Long was named offensive coordinator Sunday, hired away from the offensive-coordinator job at Tulane. Most notably, he was offensive coordinator at Notre Dame from 2017-19, during which time the Fighting Irish had a record of 33-6 and Long was named a finalist for the Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top assistant coach.
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