Due to his recent contract extension, University of Utah head football coach Kyle Whittingham is now one of the highest compensated coaches in the Pac-12.
Whittingham is slated to earn $6 million this year ($4.5 million in pay from the school, $1.5 million from Learfield and Under Armour) and by 2027 could make $8 million.
Per The Mercury News’ Jon Wilner, Whittingham’s extension puts him ahead of nine of the Pac-12’s 11 other head coaches when it comes to compensation, with salary figures obtained from university disclosures.
With an average salary of $6.83 million over the duration of his extension, Whittingham is the highest paid head coach at a public university in the conference, making nearly $2 million more than Oregon’s Dan Lanning and over $2 million more than Cal’s Justin Wilcox and UCLA’s Chip Kelly.
The gulf between Whittingham and the rest of the Pac-12’s coaches (at public universities) only grows from there, as the remaining coaches make somewhere between $2 million and $3 million annually.
Only USC’s Lincoln Riley and Stanford’s David Shaw are believed to make more than Whittingham, according to Wilner.
USC and Stanford are both private universities so the exact numbers are not known since they are not required to disclose them, but Riley is believed to have signed a 10-year, $100 million dollar contract with the Trojans.
Shaw is believed to currently make somewhere between $6 million and $7 million a season, according to Wilner, though some outlets put Shaw’s compensation between $8 million and $9 million annually.
Per Wilner, Whittingham’s raise is a clear illustration of the commitment that Utah has made to football, and a promising move for the conference on the whole.
On a national level, though, Whittingham’s raise wasn’t enough to vault him into the highest compensation tier.
According to Pro Football Network, Whittingham doesn’t crack the top 10 of highest compensated coaches nationally (Riley and Shaw do).
According to PFN, Riley’s contract makes him the highest-paid college football coach, followed closely by Alabama’s Nick Saban ($9,753,221 annually), LSU’s Brian Kelly ($9,500,000), Michigan State’s Mel Tucker ($9,500,000) and Ohio State’s Ryan Day ($9,500,000).
The remaining coaches in the top 10 include Shaw ($8,925,000), Clemson’s Dabo Swinney ($8,370,775), Miami’s Mario Cristobal ($8,000,000), Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher ($7,500,000) and Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin ($7,250,000).