Despite its amateur status, the ever-evolving sport of college football will always be centered around money during its offseason months. With Name, Image, Likeness dominating the talk around its athletes, college football (and college athletics as a whole) has seen much scrutiny around the total dollar figure associated with the sport in recent months.
One constant, however, has always been the total amount of money that the top-tier college football head coaches are paid.
Top Earning College Football Head Coaches
When answering the question “how much do college football coaches make,” it’s important to start at the top. Though they’re the exception to the rule, the top college football head coaches make upward of $11 million per year.
Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney is the top earner, netting $11.5M per year with the program, while multi-time National Champion head coach Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs ranks second, earning $11.25M per year.
Four other head coaches net total earnings in the eight figures ($10M or more), including Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, USC’s Lincoln Riley, and Florida State’s Mike Norvell.
Of the top 10 highest-paid coaches in the country, five of them reside in the SEC, while the Big Ten houses three and the ACC holds the remaining two.
Though those top-earning head coaches are certainly the exception to the rule, their salaries and total net worth on their contracts drive up the average for the rest of the country’s coaches. While every specific coaching contract is not known, the lowest total annual salary for a college football head coach at the FBS level is still over $500,000.
KEEP READING: Top 10 Highest-Paid College Football Coaches
Most college football coaches make seven figures when it comes to an annual take-home amount. While that doesn’t often mean their annual salaries are that high, the bonus packages and incentives for being a head coach rival most sports.
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