Penn State defensive coordinator Brent Pry played at the University of Buffalo, started his coaching career there and graduated from the school in 1994. So now that Buffalo is looking for a new head coach, it’s inevitable that Pry’s name would be mentioned as a potential candidate.
Buffalo just lost coach Lance Leipold, who was named head coach at Kansas. Leipold spent six seasons at Buffalo, compiling a 37-33 record, including 10-4 in 2018 and 6-1 last season.
The Buffalo News ran a story Friday listing possible candidates and wrote this about Pry:
Brent Pry, Penn State defensive coordinator: Pry played college football at UB before he sustained a career-ending injury. That injury, however, steered him into coaching in 1992, and since then, Pry has coached at the FBS, FCS and Division II levels. As part of Penn State’s staff since 2014, he’s served as the Nittany Lions’ defensive coordinator, linebackers coach and associate head coach.
Pry’s name has come up for coaching jobs in the past, and at some point he may decide to pursue a head coaching opportunity. But he has said repeatedly over the years that he’s happy where he’s at and working for James Franklin, which is a big reason why he’s stayed at Penn State.
There’s also this reason: Money.
Pry is believed to be making at least $1.5 million per year at PSU. That is a big salary, and quite honestly, one that cannot be matched by a lot of smaller programs even for head coaches.
For comparison, Buffalo was only paying Leipold a base salary of $474,300, along with additional pay of $150,000, according to this story, based off Buffalo News reporting.
So, if Pry is indeed making $1.5 million at Penn State, he would have to take a massive pay cut of nearly $1 million to make what Leipold was making at Buffalo.
Obviously, it makes a lot of sense for Pry to be mentioned for this job. But it also wouldn’t make much sense for him to take it for that amount of money.
Pry is an Altoona native, and longtime PSU beat writer Neil Rudel from the Altoona Mirror just tweeted out this information about Pry:
Brent Pry's name has come up in connection w head coaching vacancy at the University of Buffalo, his alma mater, but he's not interested. Which is good news for Penn State as Pry has been James Franklin's right-hand man, confidant and longest-tenured assistant at Vandy and #PSU.
— Neil Rudel (@NeilRudel) May 1, 2021
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