Kenny Dillingham has had a difficult start to life as the Arizona State Sun Devils head coach. However, he isn’t doing badly off the field. After signing a huge contract, the Sun Devils’ HC will look to turn the program’s fortunes around in 2024.
What is Dillingham’s salary and contract for the upcoming season?
Kenny Dillingham’s Salary and Contract in 2024
Dillingham signed a five-year contract in November 2022 that started at $3.85 million but increases annually. With additional incentives, his salary for the 2024 college football campaign will be at least $3.95 million.
Born in Pheonix, The Sun Devils HC replaced Herm Edwards in Tempe, Arizona, and became the first ASU alumni to be the head coach of the football program.
Edwards was reportedly paid $3.9 million when he was fired in 2022, meaning Dillingham is paid roughly the same as his predecessor.
As reported by AZCentral, Dillingham’s salary is guaranteed to increase by $100,000 in November each year, starting in 2023. This means the Sun Devils head coach’s base salary in 2024 will be $3.95 million and should hit $4.25 million by the end of his contract.
At the time of signing, the contract made Dillingham the highest-paid public employee in the state of Arizona.
There are also numerous heavy incentives included in Dillingham’s contract that will boost the overall worth.
There will be an additional $1.4 million paid if Arizona State wins 12 regular season games, while Dillingham will also get $100,000 if he is named National Coach of the Year and $50,000 if he is named any other Coach of the Year — for the 2024 college campaign that will be the Big 12 Coach of the Year following the Sun Devils’ switch as part of recent college football realignment.
The incentives in Dillingham’s contract are not focused solely on athletic performance. The Sun Devil head coach also gets bonuses if Arizona State performs well academically.
There is a maximum of $300,000 if the football team’s Grade Point Average (GPA) hits 3.0 and there is a Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 91%. There are also academic incentives for lower GPAs and GSR.
Dillingham started his coaching career at Chaparral High School as a teenager after tearing his ACL, and a year after graduating from ASU, he returned to Tempe to become an offensive assistant under offensive coordinator Mike Norvell.
In 2014, Dillingham became a graduate assistant at Memphis, where Norvell had been hired as head coach. The now-Sun Devils head coach worked his way up the ranks, becoming offensive coordinator in 2018 before spending one year in Auburn and two years at Florida State as OC.
Before becoming head coach at Arizona State, Dillingham had one more stop, landing in Eugene with the Oregon Ducks in 2022.
In his first year as head coach at Mountain America Stadium, Dillingham went 3-9, with their only wins against Southern Utah, Washington State, and UCLA.
Dillingham’s Net Worth
Under his current contract, Dillingham has a net worth of $20.25 million. This is based on his five-year contract and base salary, which started at $3.85 million for 2023 and tops out at $4.25 million in the final year of his current deal.
That figure doesn’t include any potential athletic or academic success incentives — as listed above — nor does it include any salary Dillingham accrued in any of the stops along his coaching journey.
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Finally, his net worth doesn’t include any of the employment perks Dillingham receives alongside his salary. The Arizona State HC gets expenses, sports tickets, car grants, and admission to the university golf course, amongst other extras.
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