Maybe it wasn't all about money ...

N.C. State finally got around to announcing longtime USF defensive coordinator Rick Kravitz as the team's new safeties coach Wednesday, with the additional title of special teams coordinator. For all the talk about how this was fueled by a pay increase, there's an interesting new development.

Kravitz was USF's highest-paid football assistant last year, making $104,000 in base salary. Add in his bowl bonus, and he made $112,000 with the Bulls. His new salary at N.C. State is $115,000, so unless he has some kind of handshake agreement on the side with Chuck Amato, he's likely taking a pay cut to move to Raleigh. Remember, too, that North Carolina has a 6 percent state income tax.

Kravitz had told USF coach Jim Leavitt that the Wolfpack's initial offer was $130,000, and Leavitt offered to match it -- the pool for his assistants goes up $160,000 this year to $850,000, which works out to better than $15,000 raises on average, so he had no problem doing that. Kravitz later told him N.C. State had made him another offer he couldn't refuse. Kravitz said publicly that the move was predicated by his fiance (now wife) getting a great job opportunity in pharmaceuticals in Raleigh, and this new financial info seems to mesh with that kind of reasoning.

As for the salary, perhaps Kravitz was promised additional coaching responsibilities that will be added at a later date, with a corresponding salary bump with it. For now, it seems very much like when receivers coach Tom Pajic left after signing day two years ago when his wife got a great job in Pennsylvania. I can remember Johnny Peyton getting a phone call on the morning of signing day, with another school telling him Pajic was leaving USF to interview for the receivers job at Pittsburgh (where Peyton had once committed). Pajic wound up at Bloomsburg State, his alma mater, on the other side of the state.

-- One more football note: I've seen new defensive graduate assistant Mike Simmonds at the athletic facility and in the football office on four different days in the past week. His arrest on a charge of driving under the influence is a poor, poor decision, but doesn't appear to be one that will cost him his job with the Bulls. If anything, USF is going to petition to allow him to work with the team in spring practice, even though he isn't taking classes (as GAs are required) this semester.