be pulled up to coach college football. The biggest reason is money. Typically, the route to coaching college football goes through becoming a graduate assistant. That means 2-3 years of going from making $60,000+ a year to having no income. Then of course you can begin to move up the ranks, but it's a lot of lean years before they start making significantly better money than they were as a high school coach. Now before you get all defensive, I concede that there are examples of high school coaches who have jumped right into paid college coaching situations, but typically the career path you choose at the beginning, high school assistant or graduate assistant, determines which level of the game you will coach for your career.