USA Today released their annual database of college football head coaches and their salaries today.
The list that had Nick Saban leading the way in compensation for years now has his top former pupil leading the way with Georgia's Kirby Smart.
While that will come as no surprise, the gap between Kirby and Clemon's Dabo Swinney, the second highest paid coach in college football, is a record since the salaries have been tracked.
Kirby's total pay is listed at $13,282,580 while Dabo is set to make $11,132,775.
Back in May Georgia announced an extension for Kirby Smart's contract aimed at keeping him in Athens through 2033. The new deal included a raise of more than $2.5 million, thus widening the gap between Smart and Dabo to about $2 million.
That gap is the largest it has been since Steve Berkowitz and USA Today began tracking salaries dating back to 2006.
Not surprisingly, the rest of the top ten is dominated by SEC coaches with six making up the top ten.
The Big Ten and ACC both check in with two on the list.
Other notable nuggets from the database:
- Marcus Freeman is set to make $6,687,754 at Notre Dame, a private school that normally doesn't have their salary information public.
- Highest paid Group of Five coach? USF's Alex Golesh at #63 ($2,503,099) and UTSA's Jeff Traylor isn't far behind at #64 ($2.5 million).
- Lowest reported salary belongs to Brian Bohannon at Kennesaw State ($376k).
- Salary info not available for Kevin Wilson (Tulsa), Manny Diaz (Duke), Bill O'Brien (Boston College), Kalani Sitake (BYU), Jon Sumrall (Tulane), Fran Brown (Syracuse), Troy Taylor (Stanford), David Braun (Northwestern) and Troy Calhoun (Air Force).
Berkowtiz and the USA Today crew do an outstanding job on this every year, see the full run down via this link.