Football coach salaries still on rise; Miles seventh highest overall–Hudspeth second in SBC

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From Staff and USA Today reports

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Head football coach Nick Saban, who makes more than $5.5 million, is the nation’s highest-paid coach, at two-time defending national champion Alabama of the Southeastern Conference — where every coach at a public school makes more than $2 million.

LSU’s Les Miles, the fourth-highest paid coach in the SEC (behind Bret Bielema of Arkansas and Butch Jones of Tennessee) and seventh overall, brings in $4.5 million, according to information released Wednesday by USA Today Sports.

UL’s Mark Hudspeth makes $803,000, the second most in the Sun Belt Cnference after Bobby Petrino of Western Kentucky ($855,600).

Coaches are among the major beneficiaries as schools across the nation bet on football and play musical chairs with conference affiliations. The average compensation package for major-college coaches is $1.81 million, a rise of about $170,000, or 10 percent, since last season — and more than 90 percent since 2006, when USA Today Sports began tracking coaches’ compensation.

At this rate, coaches’ compensation would more than double in less than a decade.

The rapid rise comes at a time when instructional spending at many schools is declining or not increasing at the same pace as spending on athletics, according to a report by the Delta Cost Project at the non-profit American Institutes for Research that was based on data from the U.S. Department of Education and data collected by USA Today Sports. Among FBS schools, median athletics spending per student-athlete increased by 51 percent from 2005 through 2010, the Delta Project reported, while median academic spending per student rose by 23 percent in the same period.

In the power conferences, money from lucrative TV deals — including conferences such as the Big Ten and Pac-12 having their own cable networks — has unleashed a new era of massive spending on football.

And some of it has trickled down to the Mid-Major level as well.

UL’s Hudspeth has a base salary of $175,000 with a $575,000 premium benefits addition from a designated athletic funding accounts provided.

The length of Hudspeth’s current contract is from Jan. 1, 2012 through Dec. 31, 2016.

In addition to that combined $750,000 salary, Hudspeth has numerous bonuses that could realistically get this year’s salary over $800,000, as it did a year ago.

For instance, he gets a $25,000 bonus for winning the Sun Belt and going to a bowl. If that isn’t reached, he gets $15,000 for just going to a bowl and $10,000 for winning that bowl. There’s an additional $10,000 for reaching certain academic standards and $10,000 for high graduation rates.

He can add as much as another $40,000 with conference, state and/or national coaches awards.

There’s also an attendance bonus system. There’s an extra $10,000 with an average paid attendance of 20,000 or with 15,000 or more season ticket holders.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:
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Football: Coach Salary Highlights

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(Compiled by USA Today Sports)

TOP 10 NATIONALLY:

1. Nick Saban, Alabama, $5.5M

2. Mack Brown, Texas, $5.4M

3. Bret Bielema, Arkansas, $5.1M

4. Butch Jones, Tennessee, $4.8M

5. Bob Stoops, Oklahoma, $4.7M

6. Urban Meyer, Ohio State, $4.6M

7. Les Miles, LSU, $4.4M

8. Brady Hoke, Michigan, $4.1M

9. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa, $3.9M

10. Charlie Strong, Louisville, $3.7M

SUN BELT COACHES:

75. Bobby Petrino, Western Kentucky, $855,600

76. Mark Hudspeth, UL, $803,000

79. Bryan Harsin, Arkansas State, $724,597

93. Trent Miles, Georgia State, $510,000

99. Troy, Larry Blakeney, $481,000

110. Joey Jones, South Alabama, $384,450

115. Dennis Franchione, Texas State, $373,375

119. Todd Berry, UL Monroe, $288,268

SEC COACHES:

12. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina, $3.32M

13. Mark Richt, Georgia, $3.31M

17. Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M, $3.1M

20. Gary Pinkel, Missouri, $2.8M

22. Will Muschamp, Florida, $2.73M

23. Dan Mullen, Mississippi State, $2.7M

32. Gus Malzahn, Auburn, $2.4M

49. Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss, $2M

50. Mark Stoops, Kentucky, $2M

54. James Franklin, Vanderbilt, $1.8M

STATE COACHES:

92. Skip Holtz, La. Tech, $500,000

126. Curtis Johnson, Tulane, N/A