It’s no secret that college football coach’s salaries have skyrocketed in recent years.

Georgia’s Kirby Smart now makes $13.28 million per year, while Ohio State’s Ryan Day recently agreed to an extension that will pay him $12.5 million in 2025. Even coaches without national titles are bringing home big dollars, as Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer earns $10 million per year and Auburn’s Hugh Freeze is paid $6.5 million annually.

This wasn’t always the case, though coaches have been extremely well-compensated for the better part of the last half-century. But once television broadcast revenues exploded during the early years of the 21st century, college football brands became exponentially more valuable.

With college football rosters turning over completely ever 4-5 years, coaches became the faces of their programs in a way they are not in professional sports. That “brand identity” led to buyout clauses being inserted into coaching contracts, and coaches demanding higher salaries to stay put when being courted by other schools and even the NFL.

So how much have notable coaches at Alabama, Auburn and other schools earned over the years? Here’s a look back at some of the bigger names in this state and beyond made at various points in their careers, with salary data taken from research on newspapers.com and other sites (we’ve used the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Inflation Calculator to give us the December 2024 — the latest numbers available — equivalent of those earnings):

Paul “Bear” Bryant, Alabama (1958-82)

Top salary: $450,000

Adjusted for inflation: $1.48 million

Bryant wasn’t the first big-dollar college football coach. That was Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, who reportedly was earning $75,000 ($1.5 million in 2024 dollars) annually — mostly from endorsements — by the time of his death in a plane crash in 1931. By the late 1950s, Oklahoma’s Bud Wilkinson had cleared the $100,000 mark (equal to $1.1 million in 2024), with much of that income coming from his weekly “Inside Football” show, which aired on national television.

Bryant’s base salary when hired at Alabama in 1958 was $17,500 — equivalent to $193,000 in 2024 and famously lower than University president Frank Rose’s $20,000 income ($220,000 in 2024). He was also the Crimson Tide’s athletics director, though assistant AD Sam Bailey did much of the administrative work in the department.

By the time of his retirement in 1982, Bryant’ was earning around $450,000 in salary, radio and television income (his weekly television show drew huge ratings each Sunday during the football season) and speaking fees. That’s the equivalent of $1.48 million in 2024 dollars.

Incidentally, the second-highest paid coach in college football at the time, Oklahoma’s Barry Switzer, earned $270,000 per year, or about $889,000 in modern dollars.

Pat Dye, Auburn (1981-92)

Top salary: $421,000

Adjusted for inflation: $936,000

Dye — who, like Bryant, was also his school’s athletics director — was paid around $140,000 per year during his early days at Auburn, which is a little over $400,000 in current day salary. By the time he resigned at the end of the 1992 season, the four-time SEC champion was earning around $421,000 per year ($936,000 in 2024 dollars).

Auburn got Dye fairly cheap in 1981 because he was merely the head coach at Wyoming at the time, but that would not have been the case with the Tigers’ first choice. Georgia’s Vince Dooley — a former Auburn quarterback and assistant coach — reportedly very nearly jumped to his alma mater just as the Bulldogs were putting the finishing touches on their 1980 national championship.

Auburn reportedly offered Dooley a five-year deal at $200,000 per year ($731,000 per year in 2024), later upping that to eight years and $225,000 per year ($822,000 nowadays) to also be AD. Dooley, of course, turned down his alma mater and stayed at Georgia another eight years as football coach and remained on as AD through 2004.

Ray Perkins, Alabama (1983-86)

Top salary: $500,000

Adjusted for inflation: $1.4 million

Perkins replaced Bryant initially just as football coach, but took on the AD job following Bryant’s death in January 1983. He had left the NFL’s New York Giants to return to Alabama, and was earning around $500,000 per year ($1.4 million in 2024) by the end of his Crimson Tide tenure in 1986.

Perkins left Alabama to go back to the NFL, this time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He received a significant raise to do so, about $800,000 per year ($2.2 million in 2024).

Bill Curry, Alabama (1987-89)

Top salary: $500,000

Adjusted for inflation: $1.4 million

Unlike Bryant and Perkins before him, Curry was not Alabama’s AD, but received a salary of around $500,000 per year ($1.4 million) when he jumped to the Crimson Tide from Georgia Tech.

Curry later turned down an extension worth around $624,000 per year ($1.5 million in 2024) and resigned to take the Kentucky job at the end of the 1989 season.

Gene Stallings, Alabama (1990-96)

Top salary: $566,000

Adjusted for inflation: $1.14 million

Alabama had pursued Florida State’s Bobby Bowden to become head coach job when Curry got the job, and Bowden’s bosses in Tallahassee later upped the ante to keep the coach from jumping to Tuscaloosa in the future. The Birmingham native got a raise to $600,000 per year in January 1990 ($1.42 million in 2024) and later received what amounted to a lifetime contract that made him the sport’s first $1 million-per-year coach after various bonuses and escalators were executed.

Alabama ultimately hired Stallings — then out of work after being fired from the NFL’s Phoenix Cardinals — and enjoyed its most success in the years between the Bryant and Saban eras. By the time of his resignation at the end of the 1996 season, Stallings was earning around $566,000 per year (the equivalent of $1.12 million today).

Steve Spurrier, Florida (1990-2001)

Top salary: $2.1 million

Adjust for inflation: $3.81 million

Spurrier left Duke for his alma mater and got a decent payday initially, a five-year deal worth $428,000 annually (worth $1.06 million in 2024). After several SEC championships and numerous NFL courtships, Spurrier became the sport’s first coach to earn $1 million per year in base salary in 1996.

A year later, Spurrier’s salary virtually doubled to right at $2 million. By the end of his Florida tenure in 2001 — when he jumped to the NFL’s Washington franchise — Spurrier was making $2.1 million per year, or the equivalent of $3.81 million in 2024.

Spurrier’s biggest adversary/foil during those years was Tennessee’s Phillip Fulmer, who was earning $1.78 million per year ($3.03 million in 2024) by the end of his time in Knoxville.

Terry Bowden, Auburn (1993-98)

Top salary: $600,000

Adjusted for inflation: $1.17 million

Bowden was head coach at then-Division II Samford when Auburn hired him to replace Dye, but got a number of raises after an undefeated debut season and three wins over Alabama in five years. By 1997 he was earning $600,000 per year, the equivalent of $1.17 million in 2024.

After many years in television, Bowden has coached at the Division II level (North Alabama) and in the Group of 5 (Akron and Louisiana-Monroe), but never got another job on the level of Auburn.

Mike DuBose, Alabama (1997-2000)

Top salary: $525,000

Adjusted for inflation: $1.04 million

DuBose was a career assistant who landed his dream job following Stallings’ resignation, and earned $525,000 per year under his original contract ($1.04 million in 2024). DuBose incurred a number of off-field scandals, and actually gave back some salary at one point before getting a contract extension without getting a raise in 2000.

DuBose later coached in high school and at the small-college level (Millsaps), but has never returned to the major-college level, even as an assistant.

Tommy Tuberville, Auburn (1999-2008)

Top salary: $3.3 million

Adjusted for inflation: $4.9 million

After leaving Ole Miss at the end of the 1998 season, Tuberville climbed out of his pine box for a 5-year deal at Auburn that paid him $800,000 per year ($1.5 million in 2024). After winning the fifth of six straight Iron Bowls, he agreed to an extension in 2007 that paid him $3.3 million per year ($4.9 million in 2024 dollars).

Tuberville is also one of the rare coaches who got paid to go away, despite not technically being fired. Thanks to a contract clause that was put in place after Auburn tried to fire him in the “JetGate” scandal of 2003, Tuberville — who later coached at Texas Tech and Cincinnati before becoming a U.S. Senator — wound up taking home a total of $5.1 million after his departure in 2008.

Dennis Franchione, Alabama (2001-02)

Top salary: $1.3 million

Adjusted for inflation: $2.34 million

Franchione was highly successful at TCU, and moreover was taking over an Alabama program that was about to be hammered by the NCAA. Thus, he was able to work out a deal that made him the first million-dollar-per-year coach in Crimson Tide history, taking home $1.3 million (the equivalent of $2.34 million) during his two seasons in Tuscaloosa.

Texas A&M gave him a decent bump to $1.7 million per year ($2.9 million in 2024) for him to jump at the end of the 2002 season. After things didn’t work out in College Station (to put it mildly), Franchione finished his coaching career at Texas State in 2015.

Mike Price, Alabama (2003)

Top salary: $1.42 million

Adjusted for inflation: $2.4 million

Price was far from Alabama’s first choice when he was hired, but had a decent amount of leverage considering the Crimson Tide was desperate by that point and that he had just coached Washington State to the Rose Bowl.

Price was given a 7-year contract worth $1.42 million per year ($2.4 million in 2024), but didn’t even make it to his first game before he was fired for off-field reasons. He later wound up coaching several seasons at UTEP.

Mike Shula, Alabama (2004-07)

Top salary: $1.7 million

Adjusted for inflation: $2.68 million

Shula had been a career assistant in the NFL when he returned to his alma mater after the Price catastrophe. He was hired in May, a less-than-ideal time in the college football calendar to make a coaching change.

By the end of his up-and-down four-year tenure, Shula was earning $1.7 million per year, the equivalent of $2.68 million in 2024. He returned to the NFL, where he worked for more than a decade as an assistant before joining the South Carolina staff last year (he was elevated to offensive coordinator earlier this offseason).

Nick Saban, Alabama (2007-23)

Beginning salary: $3.75 million

Adjusted for inflation: $5.8 million

It’s funny to think about now, but many in and around college football were outraged that Alabama would pay Saban the ungodly sum of $3.75 million ($5.8 million in 2024) to return to the college game after a two-year NFL stint.

Saban’s initial contract at Alabama created an arms race within the sport, with one of the early beneficiaries being the man who replaced him at LSU. Les Miles had a clause in his contract that he was to be the highest paid coach in the SEC by at least $1,000, meaning he got an automatic bump past the $3.73 million mark when Saban was hired at Alabama.

Saban surpassed the $10 million per year mark in 2017, thanks in part to a $4 million signing bonus he received as part of a contract extension. By the time he retired in early 2024, he was earning $11.1 million per year to coach football (plus untold other sums in endorsements and other outside business interests).

The more recent arrivals

The SEC coaches in the state since Saban’s arrival — DeBoer and Freeze, plus Auburn’s Gene Chizik, Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin — have all been among the highest paid coaches in the sport.

Chizik started out making $2.05 million in 2009, but got a raise to $3.5 million after winning the national championship in his second season. He was fired at the end of 2012, with three years left on his contract.

Malzahn earned $2.44 million in his first season at Auburn, having spent 2012 at Arkansas State following his time as the Tigers’ offensive coordinator under Chizik. A flirtation with Arkansas — real or imagined — and wins over top-ranked Georgia and Alabama in 2017 earned him a stunning 7-year, $49 million extension, though he was fired with three years remaining on the deal.

Harsin agreed to a 5-year contract that would pay him $5.1 million per year in 2022, but made it less than two seasons into the deal before he was also fired. Between Chizik, Malzahn and Harsin, Auburn was on the hook for nearly $49 million in buyouts, though Malzahn finally came off the books after 2024, and Harsin does so after 2025.

Freeze’s six-year, $45.5 million contract runs through the 2028 season, while DeBoer’s eight-year, $87-million deal expires at the end of 2031. Those numbers aren’t likely to remain static, as history shows us that one of or both of those the coaches will either get an extension or a buyout between now and the end of their contract term.