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By Greg Wallace, Featured Columnist
April 15, 2015
It’s no secret that there’s plenty of money to go around in college football. The new College Football Playoff, along with lucrative television contracts, have pumped a large infusion of cash into FBS athletic departments, and head coaches have benefited.
This week, Ohio State announced that coach Urban Meyer had received a new contract which will pay him $6.5 million annually, second nationally behind Alabama’s Nick Saban (who made $7.1 million in 2014, per a USA Today salary database). In the SEC, the coaches of both Mississippi schools, Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen and Ole Miss’ Hugh Freeze, received contract extensions which pushed their pay over $4 million annually.
In December, Michigan signed Jim Harbaugh to a deal that will pay him $5 million annually, continuing college football's arms race, as Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post noted.
“It’s simple, really,” agent Neil Cornrich, who represents Bob Stoops, Kirk Ferentz and other top coaches, told Kilgore. "As long as the revenues from college football continue to grow, all the numbers will follow.”
Last fall, 27 coaches were listed by USA Today with salaries of $3 million or more, a figure sure to jump this year.
With all that cash floating around, there are some programs which aren’t getting the biggest bang for their buck and athletic directors that regret handing out contracts. Here’s a look at the nine most overpaid coaches in college football. Unless otherwise noted, all salary figures came from the USA Today database.
