Tag: College Football Coaching Salaries

USC is definitely not getting bang for the buck with Lincoln Riley

The USA TODAY Sports list of college coaches’ salaries is out. Lincoln Riley is a highly-paid head coach. USC has to wonder when the investment will pay off.

USA TODAY Sports published its annual list of college football head coaching salaries on Wednesday. The top five coaches on the list and seven of the top eight have all made the College Football Playoff. The top two coaches on the list have won multiple national championships. In that group of highly-paid coaches is Lincoln Riley. The USC head coach did have a superb season in 2022, but the trajectory of the program is, at best, stuck in neutral right now before recruiting reinforcements arrive in 2025. A coach being paid a top-five national salary is supposed to do more with the investment USC has made in his talent and reputation.

It’s impossible to say that the USC program is headed upward right now, given the 3-3 start to the season and a poor track record in close games. USC is 1-3 in games decided by a margin of one score (eight points or fewer), the mark of a team which comes close but can’t finish the job.

It is too early to write off Riley at USC. He basically threw away one year, 2023, by retaining Alex Grinch. Now he is playing catch-up. The 2024 season had high hopes, but being realistic, USC was not in an ideal position to contend for championships this season. The Trojans need to stockpile talent, especially on the front lines. They need to land big fish in the transfer portal and bring in an offensive line coach who can recruit better than what Josh Henson has done. The 2024 season won’t be a success unless USC can win each of its next six games, which is highly unlikely. The Trojans have to show something more in 2025. We will see what the state of the program is 13 or 14 months from now. Then Lincoln Riley’s future can be evaluated more fully. Right now, we can simply say that USC isn’t getting anything close to a maximum return on its investment.

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Dan Lanning stands among highest-paid young coaches in NCAA for 2023 season

The USA TODAY coaches salary database for 2023 is now out. So where does Oregon’s Dan Lanning rank among the top-paid coaches in the nation?

It may not be a monumental day in the world of college football, but it’s something we definitely take note of.

Each season, USA TODAY releases the database for salaries of college football head coaches at public universities, showing who is paid the most per season, the potential bonuses included, and the buyouts coaches have to pay if they end their contracts before a certain period of time.

That last bit of information is always the most interesting since it usually becomes one of the most notable figures each and every year as we see the coaching carousel continue to churn in the world of college football.

Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning became a very rich man earlier this year, signing a new contract extension before the season in late July and tying him to the team through the end of the decade.

Lanning’s extension increases his yearly salary from $4.7 million to $7 million, increasing by $200,000 each year through 2028. Should he hit all of his incentives and kickers, Lanning could make more than $70 million over the next nine years in Eugene, while a massive $20 million buyout has been put in place should he leave the Ducks.

So how do those numbers stack up against the other highly paid coaches in the nation? Now that USA TODAY’s database has been released, we can finally get an idea:

** It should be noted that the database only covers public universities, so contracts for Lincoln Riley (USC), Josh Freeman (Notre Dame) and coaches at other private schools are not included. **