On Thursday, Feb. 6, Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day became the second-highest-paid coach in the country by signing an extension through 2031 with the Buckeyes that will pay him $12.5 million annually.
The extension is well deserved, as the Buckeyes clinched their first national title since the 2014 season, the first year of the College Football Playoff. Their national championship win over Notre Dame made Day only the third active coach to win a championship in the sport.
Ryan Day’s Extension Sends Message: Winning Equals Spending Money
In a cutthroat sport like college football, no coach’s job is ever safe, but if you win national titles, you can certainly make top-tier money. That is exemplified by Ryan Day and the other two active coaches with national titles, Georgia coach Kirby Smart and Clemson coach Dabo Swinney.
Swinney last won a championship in 2018. In 2021, his contract was expiring, so Clemson signed Swinney to a 10-year extension that pays him about $11 million per year.
Smart, on the other hand, most recently led his team to a title in 2022, his second-straight title. The Bulldogs followed that up by giving their coach an extension of his own that pays him about $13 million a year.
Now, fresh off his first national title as a head coach, Day is also being rewarded with a contract extension. Day’s new contract bumped him up from the fifth-highest-paid coach in college football to the second-best.
The trend among all these contract extensions is that when teams have coaches who have proven that they can win titles, they do not want to let them go.
MORE ON THE BUCKEYES: Ohio State Loses One More Coaching Staff Member After Chip Kelly
It may seem obvious that the best coaches get the best pay, but in a sport that is so focused on paying players, it’s nice to see that good coaching is still valued.
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