Professional sports aren’t the only ones dealing with dead money when it comes to contracts. At the collegiate level, it happens just as often, only it applies to the coaches and not the athletes.
ESPN released a feature story on the amount of dead money spent from coaches over the last decade (2011-2020).
| School | Ranking | Total Payouts | Number of Coaches |
| Auburn | No. 1 | $31.2M | 20 |
| Ole Miss | No. 4 | $20.4M | 51 |
| South Carolina | No. 7 | $18.6M | 13 |
| LSU | No. 13 | $14.8M | 15 |
| Georgia | No. 21 | $9.6M | 17 |
| Kentucky | No. 24 | $8.5M | 25 |
| Florida | No. 26 | $8.2M | 12 |
| Alabama | No. 27 | $8.1M | 5 |
Some of the top payouts include the No. 1 guy on the list Will Muschamp. He earned a total of $19.2M overall, $12.9M came from South Carolina and the remainder from Florida.
Another big payout went to Bo Pelini, who earned $10.5M in payouts. He received $6.5M from Nebraska and another $4M after his one disastrous season in Baton Rouge as the defensive coordinator.
All in all, the SEC led the list as a conference. They totaled $123.2M in payouts, a difference of almost $40M more than the Pac-12. As they say, it just means more in the SEC. In this case, it means more money.
As far as LSU is concerned, $13.7M was just for the football program. Les Miles earned $4.5M following his 2016 firing. Bo Pelini earned the $4M we mentioned. Cam Cameron earned $2.1M and Matt Canada earned $1.7M.
That number only going to grow exponentially with the $16.9M being added due to the firing of current head coach Ed Orgeron. Another reason why current athletic director Scott Woodward has to nail this hire.