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USA Today updated its NCAA football coaches salary database on Wednesday.
No surprise – Alabama’s Nick Saban is the highest-paid coach in the SEC, taking home a total of $8,307,000 in 2018 for being the head coach of the Crimson Tide.
Ohio State’s Urban Meyer (making $7,600,000) and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh (making $7,504,000) occupy the next-two spots, but the SEC dominates the top 10 with five coaches. In fact, the SEC even has the most coaches in the top five highest-paid (3).
Here’s where all 14 SEC coaches rank nationally:
- No. 1– Nick Saban, Alabama ($8,307,000)
- No. 4– Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M ($7,500,000)
- No. 5– Gus Malzahn, Auburn ($6,700,000)
- No. 6– Kirby Smart, Georgia ($6,603,600)
- No. 8– Dan Mullen, Florida ($6,070,000)
- No. 21– Will Muschamp, South Carolina ($4,200,000)
- No. 23– Mark Stoops, Kentucky ($4,000,000)
- No. 25– Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee ($3,846,000)
- No. 36– Chad Morris, Arkansas ($3,500,000)
- No. 37– Ed Orgeron, LSU ($3,500,000)
- No. 44– Matt Luke, Ole Miss ($3,000,000)
- No. 46– Derek Mason, Vanderbilt ($2,812,523)
- No. 49– Joe Moorhead, Mississippi State ($2,600,000)
- No. 56– Barry Odom, Missouri ($2,350,00)
USA Today’s list does not clearly state why Morris was ranked above Orgeron even though both will make $3.5 million. Two potential reasons for Morris getting No. 36 are that Arkansas had to pay SMU a buyout of $2 million. Morris also has a much larger current buyout of $12.5 million, while Orgeron’s is roughly $5.3 million.
Buyout and bonus numbers can be found in the full updated USA Today. At this time, the list is showing zeros for assistant pay, a figure that will presumably be updated in the near future.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
