Back by popular demand, we're once again examining the highest-paid position coaches in college football. We start where everything does -- up front.
Before we dive in, a bit of housekeeping.
The goal with this exercise is to isolate the market value for position coaching at the highest level of college football. However, sorting between the litany of titles accompanying positional duties -- coordinator, co-coordinator, run game coordinator, assistant head coach -- in any sort of hard-and-fast way is next to impossible. How do you differentiate between a play-calling coordinator, a non-play calling coordinator and co-coordinator?
The answer is you don't. So we're throwing everyone in the list and we'll sort it out later. The goal is to stick to 10 but go above 10 when warranted.
We've done our best to provide up-to-date salary information for each coach, relying on USA Today's salary database to fill in gaps.
Without further ado, the list.
1. Kyle Flood, Texas -- $1 million*
2. Matt Luke, Georgia -- $900,000+
3. Bill Bedenbaugh, Oklahoma -- $810,000+
4. Doug Marrone, Alabama -- $755,000
5. Glen Elarbee, Tennessee -- $750,000
6. James Cregg, LSU -- $707,000
7. Justin Frye, UCLA -- $700,000*
7. Chris Kapilovic, Michigan State -- $700,000+
7. Greg Studrawa, Ohio State -- $700,000
10. Brad Davis, Arkansas -- $650,000
11. Robbie Caldwell, Clemson -- $640,000
12. Josh Henson, Texas A&M -- $600,000
12. Brent Key, Georgia Tech -- $600,000+
12. Alex Mirabal, Oregon -- $600,000+
15. Greg Adkins, South Carolina -- $550,000
15. Sherrone Moore, Michigan -- $550,000+
* - Offensive coordinator
+ - Co-coordinator/run game coordinator/assistant head coach
-- New hires we don't yet have salary information for: Will Friend at Auburn (he made $800,000 at Tennessee), Clay McGuire at USC, George Barnett at Iowa, Mike Cavanaugh at Arizona State, and Eric Mateos at Baylor.
-- Elarbee earned a reported $425,000 salary for the same job at UCF. His 66 percent raise rivals the 74 percent raise his boss, Josh Heupel, got in turning his $2.3 million UCF salary into a $4 million salary at Tennessee.
-- Another big riser: Oregon's Alex Mirabal. He made $350,000 in 2020 but got a 3-year deal at $600k per, along with a promotion to assistant head coach.
-- Michigan's Moore also netted a big raise by staying put. He earned $415,000 in 2020 as the Wolverines' tight ends coach.
-- It's good to be wanted in a market-driven business. Brad Davis was set to earn $550,000 upon leaving Missouri for Arkansas last year, but netted a $100,000 raise before coaching his first game following reported interest from Texas A&M. Sam Pittman never spelled out the interest Davis got from the Aggies, and Jimbo Fisher already had -- and still has -- Josh Henson managing his O-line. Doesn't matter, got paid. ju
-- In case it slipped by anyone, Alabama's offensive line coach was an NFL head coach last season. LOL.