With the rise of the transfer portal and the influx of NIL and soon revenue-sharing dollars to the players, you could argue that the job of a college football head coach is harder than ever. The changes to the sport have certainly driven some old-school coaches, most notably Nick Saban, to hang it up, but the threat of coaches like Boston College’s Jeff Hafley leaving to take NFL coordinator jobs no longer feels existential because the money is just too good.
The price of a college football head coach has continued on its upward trajectory, and big-time openings, like the one at Alabama, and big names, like Deion Sanders and Bill Belichick, have driven the price up for everyone. With many of college football’s elite now clearing the 10-million-dollar threshold for 2025, let’s take a look at the highest-paid coaches in the sport.
Kirby Smart is now two years removed from his back-to-back titles at Georgia, but he’s still deservedly the highest-paid coach in the country, and had his quarterback been healthy for the College Football Playoff, his team may have made a much deeper run last year.
Ryan Day still hasn’t beaten Michigan, but he got over the other major hurdle he’s expected to clear as the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, winning a national championship. Ohio State rightfully rewarded him with a raise, but more will be on Day’s shoulders in 2025 with both of his coordinators from last season, Chip Kelly and Jim Knowles, departing the program.
The new era of college football has been hard on Dabo Swinney, but he led Clemson to the ACC Title in 2024 and gave Texas a bit of a scare in the first round of the CFP. Now, with Cade Klubnik back and, for the first time, a few transfer portal additions, Clemson enters 2025 with major expectations.
Dan Lanning got a major raise after steamrolling his way to an undefeated regular season after Oregon made the jump to the Big Ten. However, his team got steamrolled by Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, leaving lingering questions heading into Year 4 with the Ducks.
Reaching the College Football Playoff Semifinal cemented that Texas is indeed back, so the man who brought the Longhorns back got a big-time payday after his 13-win season. Now, the SEC will be tougher to navigate than the Big 12, especially with the expectations that come with having a Manning at quarterback.
Kalen DeBoer went from two years at Fresno State to two years at Washington to becoming the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide and replacing Nick Saban. While he’s not a spring chicken now at 50 years old, DeBoer’s meteoric rise led him to the pot of gold in Tuscaloosa, inking an eight-year $87 million contract.
Lincoln Riley has upheld his reputation as a quarterback whisperer in LA, helping lead Caleb Williams to a Heisman Trophy and the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, but Riley hasn’t done a whole lot of winning since the Trojans pried him away from Norman with a 10-year contract. Now, USC has to be patient and hope Riley can sort things out in the Big Ten.
Even if the NFL wasn’t interested, Bill Belichick wasn’t going to become a first-time college football coach for free. North Carolina has made a serious investment in its football program, but with the PR disaster that has followed, it hasn’t been paying off.
Essentially, for the first time this century, Colorado is a noteworthy college football program, and in 2024, after a two-year roster overhaul, Deion Sanders led the Buffaloes to a nine-win season and had them playing meaningful games with CFP implications well into November.
It was clear that Brian Kelly felt as though he had reached the ceiling at Notre Dame when he left for a 10-year mega-deal with LSU in 2021. Now, three years into that deal, Notre Dame just came within a win of the national championship for the first time since Kelly took them there in 2013, and Kelly may already be on the hot seat.