Football: How much will UL’s new football coach earn?

The Advertiser, Dec. 21, 2017

Billy Napier’s was introduced this week as the new football coach for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Napier, the 38-year-old who has served under the two coaches who won the last two national championships — Alabama’s Nick Saban and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, replaces Mark Hudspeth. Hudspeth was terminated after seven seasons at UL and is now associate head coach and tight ends coach at Mississippi State University.

Napier started his career at Clemson as a graduate assistant in 2003 after playing quarterback at Furman from 1999-2002.

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Fifteen years later, he agreed to a five-year deal to take on his first college head coaching job. He will be paid $756,960 guaranteed in his first year, with the base salary of $250,000 increasing by $25,000 each year of his deal. If all incentives on his contract are met, Napier could make $1,466,960.

Also in Napier’s contract is $2 million for assistant coaches and staff.

At $1.1 million, Hudspeth was the highest-paid among Sun Belt Conference coaches. He earned more than any coach in Conference USA or the MAC, two other Group of Five conferences.

Hudspeth had nine assistant coaches, and their salaries totaled $1.1 million. That total, however, doesn’t include support staff.

Napier, like Hudspeth before him, will be the highest paid coach in the Sun Belt. Arkansas State’s Blake Anderson is next-highest paid Sun Belt coach at $700,000.

Doug Martin of Sun Belt-member New Mexico State is the lowest paid at $376,044, just ahead of Matt Viator from Sun Belt-member UL Monroe ($390,000).

Other Sun Belt coaches: Troy’s Neal Brown (89th; $660,000), Texas State’s Everett Withers (90th; $650,000), South Alabama’s Joey Jones (98th; $525,000), Georgia State’s Trent Miles (101st; $537,405), Appalachian State’s Scott Satterfield (102nd; $525,000), Georgia Southern’s Tyson Summers (106th; $500,000) and Idaho’s Paul Petrino ($112th; $417,104).

Other coaches from schools in Louisiana:  LSU Ed Orgeron ($500,000 base salary, but his total pay comes to $3.5 million); Louisiana Tech’s Skip Holtz ($500,000).