There's not many active NCAA head coaches that have a national championship, but they're all easy to find: Go look at the lists of highest-paid coaches in college football.
Alabama's Nick Saban, after his August 2022 contract extension, is the highest-paid head coach in college football at $10.695M, escalating to $12.7M in the final year of the contract (2029).
The previous record holder, for a little more than a month, was Georgia's Kirby Smart. His July 2022 contract extension was for 10 years and $112.5M, starting at $10.25M in 2022 and ending at $12.25M in 2031.
(The timing of Saban's pay raise was intentional, by the way: His contract contains language that requires Saban and his representatives to meet with Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne every February and at that time, if Saban's compensation is less than either the average of the five highest-paid college football coaches OR less than the three highest-compensated SEC coaches, he received an automatic compensation increase to the higher of the two averages. It's good to be the king.)
Not to be outdone, Clemson signed head coach Dabo Swinney to a 10-year, $115M contract extension in September 2021, one that interestingly contains an "Alabama" clause: His buyout is 1.5x higher to leave for Alabama than any other university. (There is no buyout for a NFL job, interestingly).
What's the thing those coaches all have in common? They've collectively won six of the last seven national championships.
But behind them on the same salary lists are the coaches that are considered to be of the caliber to compete for championships, and they're...not really coming at a discount.
Bryan Kelly got (incentive-adjusted) $10.5M per year to leave Notre Dame for LSU on a ten year contract. Jimbo Fisher got extended for 10 years and a fully-guaranteed $95M after leaving Florida State for Texas A&M and winning 18 of his first 23 games. And this isn't exclusive to the SEC: Mario Cristobal's new deal at Miami is reported to be 10 years, $80M. Mel Tucker got extended at Michigan State on a fully-guaranteed 10 year, $95M contract in November 2021. Heck, Penn State's not considered a playoff contender and they still gave James Franklin 10 years, $70M to not leave last November. Lincoln Riley is making $10M in the first year of his tenure at USC.
And then there's Lane Kiffin.
When he signed on as head coach of Ole Miss in Dec 2019, he was making a total of $16.2M on a four year deal, averaging just over $4M/year. He signed an one-year extension prior to the 2021 season, raising his salary to $4.5M and increasing the total incentive dollars, as well as the salary pool for his assistants.
And then he went 10-2 in 2021, and Ole Miss was picked for the Sugar Bowl vs Baylor.
His new contract, announced shortly after the 2021 SEC Championship Game ended, raised his salary to $7.5M plus incentives. A LOT of incentives.
There's incentives for SEC wins, non-conference wins against Power 5 opponents, bowl matchups, academic achievement, postseason awards, even for season ticket sales!
You may be noticing a theme here: Coaches typically get long contracts, but Kiffin's never gotten longer than four at Ole Miss. Why?
Blame the Mississippi legislature. Section 213-A of the Mississippi Constitution limits employees of educational or administrative employees of state schools to contracts of four years or less. It was put in place when the Constitution was adopted in 1890.
And boy it's been causing trouble ever since. In 1997, former Ole Miss AD Pete Boone tried to circumvent the state constitution to extend then-head coach Tommy Tuberville by having the last six years of the deal done through the school's athletics foundation, not the school. The chancellor disagreed, and the state college board "clarified" that the rule was for all university-related contracts, not just ones directly from a university itself. In 2018, the state legislature's Constitution Committee introduced a bill, creatively titled "Mississippi Remove Four-Year Limit on State University Employment Contracts Amendment of 2019", that would have eliminated that restriction from the state constitution.
It never made it out of committee.
That's probably a good thing for Mississippi schools, if you think about it: Auburn's paid $44 million to buy out Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin from long-term coaching contracts.
But it leaves an opening for Auburn to come in and get a coach. If Auburn offers Lane Kiffin $9M per year on an eight year contract, the only way for Ole Miss to match the money would be an $18M contract, since they're limited to four years total length.
(We're not calculating in what the buyout would be to get Kiffin free from Ole Miss because, well, we don't know what it is. Ole Miss hasn't released the figure publicly; the only information we can find is an interview with current Ole Miss Athletic Director "Vice Chancellor of Intercollegiate Athletics" Keith Carter, where he states the buyout is "healthy".)
So, if Auburn truly has identified Lane Kiffin as the coach to come in and fix the mess the last guy left? All they've got to do is open the checkbook, and they can get him.
Just add it to the bill.
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