Dan Lanning, Kyle Whittingham are the Pac-12’s highest paid coaches

Oregon head football coach Dan Lanning is the Pac-12’s highest paid coach for the 2023 season

The highest-paid head coach in the Pac-12 according to the the USA TODAY Sports coaches salary database is Oregon’s Dan Lanning. The second-year head coach is making $6.6 million to lead the Ducks and has the highest-known buyout in the conference at $44.3 million.

The second highest-paid coach in the conference may be a surprise to some as it is Utah’s Kyle Whittingham. The 63-year-old Whittingham has been the head coach in Salt Lake City since 2005 and has led the Utes to back-to-back conference championships while owning a career 158-75 record.

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders is the fourth highest-paid coach in the Pac-12 in his first year with the program, making $5.5 million this season. He notably has quite a low buyout at just $18.3 million.

Two Pac-12 head coaches’ salaries are not available in the USA TODAY database. Those two head coaches are Southern California’s Lincoln Riley and Stanford’s Troy Taylor. While there are limited details about Riley’s contract known, it is likely that his salary would not just make him the highest-paid head coach in the Pac-12 by a large margin but also one of the highest-paid head coaches in all of college football.

Check out the full listing for Pac-12 head coaches.

Head Coach Team FBS Rank Salary (millions) Buyout (millions)
Dan Lanning Oregon 19 $6.6 $44.3
Kyle Whittingham Utah 23 $6.3 $12.2
Chip Kelly UCLA 27 $5.9 $8.7
Deion Sanders Colorado 32 $5.5 $18.3
Jonathan Smith Oregon State 37 $4.8 $17.5
Justin Wilcox California 40 $4.4 $20.7
Kalen DeBoer Washington 44 $4.2 $32.2
Kenny Dillingham Arizona State 52 $3.8 $15.8
Jedd Fisch Arizona 54 $2.8 $9.1
Jake Dickert Washington State 61 $2.7 $3.7
Lincoln Riley Southern California
Troy Taylor Stanford

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Mario Cristobal says Ty Thompson is ‘as talented as a freshman you’ll see’

Though he is still working in a backup role, freshman quarterback Ty Thompson received a rave review from coach Mario Cristobal.

There were a lot of things that we can take away from our first live glimpse at the Oregon Ducks at Saturday’s spring scrimmage, but one thing that everyone had an eye turned towards was the competition at the quarterback spot.

It remained senior Anthony Brown who took the first-team reps, and he certainly looked polished and capable throughout the day. However, that was expected. What fans really wanted to see what their first look at freshman QB Ty Thompson, the program’s first five-star recruit at the position.

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The 6-foot-4, 215-pound future phenom did some impressive things on the day, but his youth was still present. After all was said and done, though, head coach Mario Cristobal had some encouraging words.

“Ty is about as talented as a freshman you’ll see,” Cristobal said, via The Athletic‘s Tyson Alger. 

A program that has seen its fair share of talented freshman over the past several years — both Noah Sewell and Justin Flowe last year, plus Kayvon Thibodeaux a couple of years back — that is some high praise coming from Cristobal. It appears that Brown is still the heavy favorite to get the start once fall camp begins, but the things we’ve seen from Thompson so far have been encouraging.

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