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USA TODAY
First-year Michigan State coach Mel Tucker’s pay has more than doubled
from a year ago, with his total compensation at $5.06 million this season.
Dozens of head coaches across the Football Bowl Subdivision have
taken pay cuts this year as schools deal with the financial fallout of the
coronavirus pandemic.
But
even with those reductions, they're still making more money than ever.
USA TODAY Sports' annual review of coaches' compensation found
that the average total pay for FBS head coaches in 2020-21 is $2.7 million,
a 1.1% increase from last year's average. Those figures include the pay
reductions that some coaches are taking this year.
In
the absence of a global pandemic, the 122 FBS coaches for whom USA TODAY Sports
could obtain scheduled compensation figures would have
made $2.79 million on average, a 4.5% jump from last year.
Alabama's
Nick Saban, who is slated to make $9.3 million, is once again the highest-paid
coach in the country, followed by LSU's Ed Orgeron ($8.9 million) and Clemson's
Dabo Swinney ($8.3 million). Saban has now been college football's highest-paid
coach in seven of the past nine years.
Here are five other findings from the latest coaches'
compensation data, which USA TODAY Sports has been compiling and analyzing on
an annual basis since 2006.
► USA TODAY Sports found some trends in pay cuts being taken by
coaches in different conferences. For example, every public-school head coach
in both the Big 12 and Big Ten took a voluntary pay reduction in the wake of
the pandemic. In the SEC, cuts have been rare, affecting coaches at only four
of the 13 public schools: Arkansas, Missouri, Ole Miss and South Carolina.
The Group of Five, meanwhile, had a few interesting outliers.
Only one public-school head coach in the Mountain West, Boise State's Bryan
Harsin, has taken a voluntary pay cut. And in the MAC, only one coach
(Buffalo's Lance Leipold) has not.
► It's not surprising that there is a difference in coaching
salaries between Power Five schools and Group of Five schools, but the size of
the gap is notable. This year, the average Power Five coach is making nearly
$4.4 million in total compensation – more than four times the compensation
for the average Group of Five coach.
► Buyout clauses are still booming. This year, at least five
coaches would be owed $30 million or more if they were fired without cause by
Dec. 1, led by Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher ($53.1 million). And more than
half of Power Five coaches (33) have buyouts of $10 million or more.
► Nothing helps a coach's wallet like a national championship
run. LSU coach Ed Orgeron accrued more than $1.77
million in bonuses last year, which means he made more in bonus
payments alone than at least 50 FBS coaches made in total compensation during
the same time period.
► It's good to be first-year Michigan
State coach Mel Tucker. Tucker's pay has more than doubled from a year ago,
when he held the same position at Colorado, and increased six-fold since 2017,
when he was an assistant at Georgia. His total compensation for 2020 ($5.06
million) ranks 14th in USA TODAY Sports' database.
Ditto
for Ryan Day. Three years ago, Day was making $400,000 as an assistant
coach at Ohio State. Now, he's due to make $5.6 million in total compensation
in 2020, and his pay will climb to $7.6 million by 2022.
Follow Steve Berkowitz on
Twitter @ByBerkowitz. Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com
or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.
