Will Muschamp's 2015 salary outranks many head coaches
Will Muschamp’s deal to become Auburn’s defensive coordinator is massive. The impact on the field is expected to be huge, but the financial terms of the deal are even bigger.
Regarded as one of the finest defensive minds and recruiters in the country, pairing Muschamp with Gus Malzahn looks like a potent combination on paper. Auburn’s defense was mediocre even when Malzahn led the Tigers to the BCS title game in his first year as coach, and it regressed badly in his second year.
The pairing isn’t a shock, as Muschamp was rumored to be heading to Auburn ever since his final day at Florida. The sticker price certainly raised eyebrows. Muschamp will earn the highest salary of any assistant coach in the country, reportedly between $1.6-1.8 million.
That places him above SEC assistants Kirby Smart, Alabama’s defensive coordinator ($1.35 million), as well as LSU coordinators Cam Cameron and John Chavis ($1.3 million each), while giving the SEC four of the five highest paid assistants in the country, per USA Today’s coaches salary database. Virginia Tech’s Bud Foster, considered a candidate for Texas A&M’s open defensive coordinator job, was the highest-paid assistant in the country in 2014 at $1.356 million.
Muschamp’s salary trumps plenty of head coaches, too. Going by the reported $1.6 million figure, Muschamp’s annual salary would rank him 59th in the country out of 121 reported salaries, per USA Today’s salary information.
Some of the names below Muschamp in 2014 salary are eye-catching, both for their high-profile jobs and name recognition.
- Paul Chryst, $1.578 million (coached at Pittsburgh in 2014, is rumored to be a candidate at Wisconsin)
- Mike Riley, $1.51 million (coached at Oregon State in 2014, was recently hired by Nebraska)
- Jim McElwain, $1.5 million (coached at Colorado State in 2014, earned a significant raise to take the Florida job)
- Brian Kelly, $1.457 million (Notre Dame head coach)
- Larry Coker, $400,000 (coached at Texas-San Antonio in 2014, former national championship coach at Miami)
Muschamp will also pocket a reported $6.3 million buyout from the final two years of his Florida contract. Adding on $3.1 million, about half of the buyout, to his reported $1.6 million salary takes Muschamp up to $4.7 million for 2015.
That total would rank him fifth in the country in head coaching salaries, behind only Alabama’s Nick Saban ($7.16 million), Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio ($5.63 million), Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops ($5.05 million), Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin ($5 million) and Ohio State’s Urban Meyer ($5.36 million). Muschamp’s total compensation in 2015 is more than Malzahn earned in 2014 ($3.85 million).