Coming off a historic national championship run as Ohio State won the first-ever 12-team playoff, Ryan Day is now one of the highest-paid head coaches in college football after signing an extension that gives him a significant raise coming off the school’s first title in a decade.
Day’s new pact with the Buckeyes catapulted him up the coaches’ rankings for 2025 in terms of salary, jumping from No. 5 to No. 2, ahead of USC’s Lincoln Riley, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.
Since succeeding Urban Meyer as Ohio State head coach in 2019, Day has moved up the coaches pay rankings, initially earning $4.5 million, but that amount has steadily risen on the back of his 70-10 record and now again after taking the Bucks to the heights of college football.
Here’s an overview of the 10 highest-paid head coaches in college football coming into the 2025 season after news of Ryan Day’s extension at Ohio State, according to the USA Today database.
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10. Mark Stoops, Kentucky
What he’s paid: $9,013,600
Stoops has led the Wildcats to two of their 10-win seasons in football, but is still just 4 games above .500 in his tenure, one of the SEC’s longest.
Kentucky hasn’t won double-digit games in the last three seasons and is coming off its worst effort in the Stoops era at 4-8 overall with a 1-7 record in SEC competition in 2024.
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9. Brian Kelly, LSU
What he’s paid: $9,975,000
Wanting to stay a contender in the SEC and nationally, LSU brought in Kelly from Notre Dame with a huge offer worth more than $100 million in total money.
And while he won 10 games in each of his first seasons, Kelly stumbled to 8-4 this fall and just lost top overall recruit Bryce Underwood when the quarterback flipped to Michigan.
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T-6. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama
What he’s paid: $10 million
Maybe no single position comes with more pressure, as DeBoer succeeded 7-time national champion Nick Saban, regarded as the best coach in college football history.
There were certainly ups and downs in his first season, including losses to Vanderbilt and Tennessee, for the school’s first 3-loss regular season since 2010 and no playoff appearance.
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T-6. Mike Norvell, Florida State
What he’s paid: $10 million
Coming off that undefeated ACC championship season, Norvell inked a deal with the Seminoles for eight years, but the school might be regretting that payout after this past season.
Florida State had its worst outing in the last 50 years, finishing just 2-10, leaving some big questions as to whether Norvell can crawl out of that hole and justify that big contract.
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T-6. Bill Belichick, North Carolina
What he’s paid: $10 million
Belichick made the biggest splash of the 2025 college football offseason, and arguably all time, after the 6-time Super Bowl champion made a deal to lead the Tar Heels football program.
That means Belichick will make double what Mack Brown did last season in the same position, a big investment for a coach with the most proven track record you can have, but who’s about to undergo a big culture change.
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5. Lincoln Riley, USC
What he’s paid: $10,043,418
Although it’s getting to the point where USC could be asking itself internally if Riley is worth all that money, given how he’s underperformed, sitting just 25-14 after three years.
A loss to Utah in the Pac-12 title game in Riley’s first season knocked his Trojans out of the College Football Playoff, revealing just how bad his defense was, and things haven’t improved, as Riley went just 6-6 in 2024.
4. Steve Sarkisian, Texas
What he’s paid: $10,600,000
Conversely, the Longhorns are more than happy with the direction of their program under Sarkisian’s leadership, going to the College Football Playoff in two straight years.
And his team has fared remarkably well during his first year in the SEC, playing for the conference championship, and getting as far as the CFP semifinal round.
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3. Dabo Swinney, Clemson
What he’s paid: $11,132,775
Swinney signed a deal in 2022 that will keep him at Clemson through the 2031 season, a school where he’s won two College Football Playoff national championships.
The team has fallen short of that standard over the last few years, although it went back to the playoff in 2024 after not qualifying since the 2020 season.
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2. Ryan Day, Ohio State
What he’s paid: $12,500,000
Ohio State announced a new contract for Day that extends the head coach through the 2031 season, adding three years to his current agreement, a signature vote of confidence in him following the Buckeyes’ historic national championship run.
Winning the title remains college football’s biggest prize, but the Ohio State faithful want to see Day perform a little better against rival Michigan after he lost the last four straight games in the series against The Team Up North.
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1. Kirby Smart, Georgia
What he’s paid: $13,282,580
Georgia’s two-time national champion surpassed Swinney this year in the salary department after signing a two-year extension this spring that runs through 2033.
Smart is 105-18 in nine years at his alma mater and fresh off winning another SEC championship, is in position once again to make a run at the national title.
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