Kevin Sumlin has been a relative bargain for the Arizona Wildcats, regardless of what the team's record might say.
Sumlin's $2 million annual salary ranks tied with Arizona State's Herm Edwards for 61st out of 130 Division I FCS head coaches, according to USA Today's annual salary database, released Wednesday. Sumlin and Edwards are tied for ninth among Pac-12 coaches, ahead of only Oregon State's Jonathan Smith ($1.9 million annually) and Cal's Justin Wilcox ($1.5 million annually). Only five Power 5 Conference coaches — Smith, Wilcox, Wake Forest's Dave Clawson, Indiana's Tom Allen and Kansas' David Beaty — make less per year.
The USA Today database is a valuable resource, though it can be inexact. Former Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez was listed as the Pac-12's top-paid head coach in last year's rankings, but that was only because USA Today assumed he would be collecting a $3 million retention bonus in March.
An accompanying story on RichRod's big payday noted: "If Arizona’s season were to crater and the school decided to fire him before March 15, 2018, he would get none of this one-time money that is taking him from somewhere near the 40th-highest paid coach in major-college football to a place among the top five." That's exactly what happened.
Washington's Chris Petersen is now the Pac-12's highest-paid coach, earning a base of $4.37 million with bonuses that could reach another $1.05 million. Stanford's David Shaw trails Petersen by less than $60,000 annually. Utah's Kyle Whittingham ranks third among league coaches with an annual take-home pay of $3.7 million, according to USA Today. Two of the Pac-12's other first-year coaches, UCLA's Chip Kelly ($3.3 million) and Oregon's Mario Cristobal ($2.5 million), make more than Sumlin, Edwards and Smith.
Sumlin signed a back-loaded contract when he took over for Rich Rodriguez in January. The coach will make $2 million per year in both 2018 and 2019, with that sum jumping to $3.5 million in 2020. Sumlin receives bonuses for academic and on-field success. The extras range from $25,000 (for making a bowl game and finishing the season ranked between No. 19 and No. 25 nationally) to $500,000 for playing in the CFP National Championship Game and $1 million for winning it. Sumlin maxes out at $2.02 million in bonuses per year.
Arizona must pay Sumlin $10 million if he is fired without cause in the first two years of his deal, with the buyout figure dropping in future years. Similarly, Sumlin must pay the UA $10 million if he leaves in the first two years of his deal.
The coach was handsomely paid before he took the Arizona job. Texas A&M paid Sumlin $5 million annually between 2014-17, according to USA Today, and delivered an additional $10 million buyout when it fired him at the end of the 2017 season.
The full USA Today database is listed here.
