College football coaching contracts set record highs in recent years, leading to gargantuan-sized buyouts. Texas A&M owed Jimbo Fisher $76 million upon last season’s firing, which nuked the previous record and made the Aggies think twice about the negotiating process before landing Mike Elko.
For the most part, coaching contract are fully-guaranteed unless terminations happen for cause. And winning brings updated contracts and new deals, in an effort to retain successful coaches when other jobs come open. The amount of dominoes that fell following Nick Saban’s retirement was considerable, and led to enhanced contracts for Mike Norvell, Dan Lanning and Steve Sarkisian, among others.
Several coaches are safe simply due to financial terms of contracts. And if any of these names find themselves on the hot seat, it’s going to take considerable booster support or private funding to foot the bill.
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Some of this buyout data was gathered through USA Today’s salary database, while others were determined through revised contract language and updated deals signed this spring. All are estimated figures:
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season: $92.6 million
Kirby Smart is college football’s highest-paid coach and deservedly so, given his results. Smart’s new contract extends through December 2033 and includes an annual salary pump of $1.75 million, which leaves Smart with $13 million per year with bonuses up to $1.55 million. Smart said this spring he never imagined a circumstance in which he would make $13 million as the head coach at Georgia before crediting the people who helped him reach this level in his career.
“Look at the coaches over the years that paved the way — Bobby Bowden, Mickey Andrews, Joe Kines — all the guys that helped shape my career and how hard they worked and what they did,” Smart said, via Dawgs247. “I never would’ve thought it would’ve happened.”
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season: $88 million
USC paid $4.5 million to Oklahoma for Lincoln Riley’s buyout, then proceeded to give him the largest contract in coaching two years ago to convince him to move to Los Angeles. Riley finished one win shy of a College Football Playoff appearance in his first season with the Trojans before falling short of expectations in 2023. According to the Los Angeles Times, USC paid Riley $19.7 million in total compensation from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, the most-ever for a college football coach. This is an estimated buyout total for Riley without since USC is a private university and those figures are not made available to the public.
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season: $77.7 million
Kalen DeBoer also has several contract bonus opportunities, as negotiated by Jimmy Sexton, who represents many of college football’s high-profile coaches. DeBoer gets more money if he reaches the SEC Championship Game, wins the conference, makes a College Football Playoff appearance and so on. If DeBoer is fired “without cause,” he earns 90% of his remaining deal in monthly installments through the end of his contract term.
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season $75.6 million
Mike Norvell signed an eight-year contract extension through 2031 with the Seminoles in January after he was pursued for Alabama’s vacancy. He is now one of the highest-paid coaches in the country following a league title-winning season in Tallahassee and near playoff appearance. Per Noles247, Norvell’s contract received a 2022 offseason amendment, when it FSU extended to a seven-year deal paying him an average of $7.8 million per season. It was set to expire on December 31, 2029. Now, he makes more than $10 million annually over the life of his new deal.
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season: $70 million
It took 10 years and nearly $100 million for LSU to lure Brian Kelly away from Notre Dame. The investment is paying off. LSU played in the SEC Championship Game to cap Kelly’s first season and flexed a 2023 Heisman winner. Given the language of his deal, Kelly is owed 90% of the remaining contract if fired at any point. If he leads LSU to a national championship during his tenure as the Tigers’ three previous head coaches have in Baton Rouge, the university will pay him 100% of the remaining deal.
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season: $64.5 million
James Franklin signed an updated 10-year contract with the Nittany Lions a few years ago that made him one of the Big Ten’s highest-paid coaches. According to a university statement, the deal lasts through the 2031 season and guarantees a base salary of $7 million per year, plus an annual $500,000 retention bonus and up to $1 million of incentives per year. Penn State is one of a handful of programs with several top 10 finishes in recent seasons and hopes to benefit in the expanded playoff era.
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season: $64 million
Three-straight seasons without a trip to the College Football Playoff is not the norm for Dabo Swinney, who won two national titles at Clemson. He signed a new contract a couple years ago worth $11.5 million annually after his previous deal — signed in 2019 — was worth $93 million and also 10 years (through 2029). In 2022, Swinney became the sixth-fastest coach in FBS history — and the fourth-fastest in the modern era — to reach 150 career wins, trailing Urban Meyer (176), Gil Dobie (180), Barry Switzer (180), Fielding Yost (184) and Joe Paterno (184), per Clemson247.
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season: $60 million
Mario Cristobal made $22.7 million in 2022, the largest-ever for a private athletics employee according to the raw data. That number included $7.7 million in base pay and $14.9 million in “other reportable compensation,” per USA Today Sports. Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich said the $14.9 million included the $9 million buyout he owed to Oregon. The gross-up pay on that accounts for the rest of the non-base payment. Cristobal is 12-13 with the Hurricanes heading into 2024 and has his most-talented roster yet.
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season $59 million
Matt Rhule is heading into his second season of an eight-year, $74 million deal with the Huskers, with 90% of his contract being guaranteed if he’s fired without cause.
“I believed he was the perfect person based on his experience and based on where we find ourselves today as a program to help us rebuild and build the foundation needed,” Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts said after he hired Rhule in November 2022. “So there was a period where it looked like it wasn’t going to happen, we decided to keep working and keep trying, and in the end there was a deal.”
Estimated buyout ahead of 2024 season $54.3 million
Steve Sarkisian banked off his 2023 success as a conference champion and first-time playoff participant with a lucrative extension. Sarkisian’s salary was outside the top 25 before doubling this spring and now, his buyout pushes past $50 million, too. Texas improved from 5-7 in Sarkisian’s first year to 8-5 in Year 2 before winning 12 games. The Longhorns enter the SEC in 2024 as one of the perceived national title contenders.
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