When Nick Saban was lured away from the Miami Dolphins to resurrect the University of Alabama Crimson Tide football program, he was lured by a contract that was said to be the richest ever offered to a NCAA football coach.
Whether that remained true before this season, I'm not sure. Saban's guaranteed base salary, before bonuses, of $3,750,000 puts him ahead of Mack Brown, who is the highest paid coach in the Big 12, when bonuses are not included. Brown's base salary is $2,900,000.
It's the bonuses, however, that separate the truly well paid from just the run of the mill high paid and when it comes to including one year pay from all sources, it's going to be hard to beat Oklahoma's Bob Stoops.
Stoops' base salary is $2,775,000 and he has earned an additional $350,000 in performance bonuses so far this year with, of course, one big game left to play. A win in the BCS Championship Game is worth an additional $250,000. In addition, Stoops earned a bonus of $3,000,000 on December 31, 2008 for having served as coach at Oklahoma for 10 years. That brings Stoops total pay for 2008 (without the bonus for the BCS win) to $6,110,000.
Bob Stoops, college football's first $6 million man.
