The article does not, nor do I in my summary, contend that better college football coaches fail to win more games. College football is ridiculously inflated, but I think most coaches are in the correct spot on the payscale for their success, even if the payscale curves upwards faster than it should.

However, the critical question in evaluating whether Saban is "worth" his contract is how many wins he represents. Alabama has played .849 ball under Saban. They played .520 under Shula over four years.

Let's say Saban makes $90m and the Tide currently generate $200m in revenue. If the Tide can get .500 out of a mediocre coach who is paid $500k/year, and .500 football attracts 70% of the revenue that .849 football attracts, then a mediocre coach would generate $140m in revenue, and Saban would actually be costing the program $30m/year. These numbers don't reflect the reality, but the issue is that THEY MIGHT. Sports are a notoriously inefficient market, and college sports doubly so because there are difficult issues of taxpayer funding and because players are unpaid.