Tag: highest paid coaches

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin agrees to extension

After Kiffin led Ole Miss to its first 10-win regular seasons in school history and seems poised to contend for a playoff spot in 2024.

Ole Miss announced on Tuesday that the school came to an agreement with head football coach Lane Kiffin on an undisclosed contract extension.

Kiffin has spent the past four seasons in charge of the Rebels football program, compiling a 33-15 record. He captained Ole Miss to its first-ever 10-win regular season in 202l and then did it again in 2023. The Rebels broke into the top ten of the College Football Rankings at some point during both seasons.

Kiffin’s 68.8% win percentage is the best in the program since Johnny Vaught stepped away in 1973, and his 28 wins over the past three seasons are the best three-season run at Ole Miss since 1960-62.

“Our football program is experiencing unprecedented success under Coach Kiffin, and we could not be more excited about what the future holds under his leadership,” Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter wrote in the university’s statement on the extension. “The Ole Miss family is committed to providing Coach Kiffin the resources needed to compete at an elite level.”

With the playoffs set to expand to 12 teams in 2024 and the Rebels currently owning the top spot in 247Sports’ transfer portal rankings, Kiffin seems poised to lead Ole Miss to its first College Football Playoff appearance in his first season on the new contract.

Dabo Swinney remains highest-paid ACC coach by margin

Dabo Swinney may not have the start he wanted at Clemson this year, but he’s still the ACC’s highest-paid coach by more than $3.5 million.

USA TODAY  released its database for college football’s highest-paid coaches earlier this week, and Clemson‘s Dabo Swinney led all ACC coaches by more than $3.5 million.

The only active coach in the conference with a national championship with his current program (North Carolina‘s Mack Brown won with Texas), Swinney is also the only ACC coach among the top 10. At more than $10.8 million, he slots between Alabama‘s Nick Saban and Georgia‘s Kirby Smart as the 2nd-highest paid in the country.

Mike Norvell, who has Florida State on the verge of a College Football Playoff appearance, follows Swinney at $7.3 million. Brown, with his reputation, is lower than one might expect on the list. Read below to see where each coach in the conference compares to his peers.

Name Team 2023 Salary National Rank Total Buyout
Dabo Swinney Clemson $10,884,775 2nd $64,000,000
Mike Norvell Florida State $7,300,000 15th $42,209,583
Pat Narduzzi Pittsburgh $5,875,817 28th N/A
Jeff Brohm Louisville $5,550,000 31st $31,416,667
Dave Doeren NC State $5,024,390 35th $10,307,926
Mack Brown North Carolina $5,000,000 36th $2,812,500
Dave Clawson Wake Forest $4,284,656 42nd N/A
Tony Elliott Virginia $4,250,000 43rd $19,475,000
Dino Babers Syracuse $4,063,138 46th N/A
Brent Pry Virginia Tech $4,000,000 51st $12,650,000
Jeff Hafley Boston College $3,120,012 55th N/A
Brent Key Georgia Tech $2,800,000 60th $7,213,333

Duke’s Mike Elko and Miami’s Mario Cristobal, since their schools are private, did not have a salary listed in the database.

Nick Saban and Kirby Smart remain highest-paid SEC coaches

The only active SEC coaches with multiple national championships naturally find themselves the two highest-paid in the conference.

The USA TODAY database on NCAA football coach salaries updated for 2023 this week, and unsurprisingly, the top of the board was littered with SEC names.

The conference boasts seven of the 10 highest-paid coaches in the country and 12 of the top 25.

The SEC is the only conference with multiple coaches who have won multiple national championships, Alabama‘s Nick Saban with an all-time record of seven and Georgia‘s Kirby Smart with the last two. Saban and Smart are the only two SEC coaches making more than $10 million, first and third in the country, respectively.

Here’s how much their conference competitors are making.

Name School Total Pay National Rank Total Buyout
Nick Saban Alabama $11,407,000 1st $44,800,000
Kirby Smart Georgia $10,705,600 3rd $92,625,000
Brian Kelly LSU $9,975,000 6th $70,018,333
Jimbo Fisher Texas A&M $9,150,000 7th $72,562,500
Mark Stoops Kentucky $9,013,600 8th $51,187,500
Josh Heupel Tennessee $9,000,000 9th $46,500,000
Lane Kiffin Ole Miss $9,000,000 10th N/A
Billy Napier Florida $7,270,000 16th $32,384,716
Hugh Freeze Auburn $6,500,000 20th $25,187,500
Sam Pittman Arkansas $6,357,500 22nd N/A
Shane Beamer South Carolina $6,125,000 24th $18,255,521
Elijah Drinkwitz Missouri $6,000,000 25th $20,437,500
Clark Lea Vanderbilt $3,051,881 56th N/A
Zach Arnett Mississippi State $3,000,000 58th N/A

 

Where does Lincoln Riley rank among college football’s highest-paid coaches?

Where does Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley rank among the highest-paid coaches in college football? A quick look at the names above him and below him:

Oklahoma knows what it takes to keep great coaches in Norman. For starters,  money is at the top of the list. Current Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley is no stranger to the compensation that comes with being Oklahoma’s head coach. In a recent look at college football’s highest-paid coaches from USA TODAY Sports, Riley ranks in the top five.

 

Nick Saban is at the top of the list and with good reason. He’s the best coach of the best program over the last 10 years. The success speaks for itself, and for Alabama, none of their other sports programs bring in the revenue or success that football does, so Saban being compensated as such makes a lot of sense.

Ed Orgeron, coach of the LSU Tigers, ranks second. Orgeron’s Tigers decimated Oklahoma a few years ago in the Peach Bowl on their way to the program’s fourth national title. It’s been a struggle since that point, as LSU finished with five wins last year and have just three in 2021. Rumors continue to swirl about the security of Orgeron’s job despite his large salary.

David Shaw of Stanford and Dabo Swinney of Clemson are the last two coaches above Riley, and both make eight million dollars apiece. Riley slots in at number five with a salary of 7.6 million dollars. He recently signed a six-year deal with Oklahoma in 2020 worth 45.2 million dollars, and his staff also received extensions and raises as well courtesy of the Oklahoma Board of Regents.

Riley will earn up to eight million dollars because of stay bonuses this season unless he decides to bolt for the NFL, which is considered unlikely. The major NFL franchises he was attached to have seemingly stabilized and found their head coaches for the foreseeable future.

With the exception of David Shaw, Riley is the only coach in the top five in salary to not have won a national title. It’s the only trophy in Riley’s cabinet that is missing and the only thing he probably cares about.

Oklahoma is in the midst of an undefeated season and also a midseason quarterback battle. Riley will have to settle that first, but with how the college football landscape looks, this year may be the best window of opportunity for Oklahoma to break through and get Riley’s first national title and Oklahoma’s eighth.