Highest-Paid College Football Coaches 2026: Top 10 CFB Coaching Salaries, from Lane Kiffin to Dan Lanning
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Who is the highest paid coach in college football? At a time when the NCAA, the Power 4 conference and elected officials are all trying to rein in Name, Image and Likeness compensation for student-athletes and create restrictions on transferring, college football coaches are cashing in. From bouncing around different programs to using job offers as leverage to routinely get contract extensions, college football coaching salaries keep skyrocketing.
Here are the 10 highest-paid college football coaches in 2026.
1. Kirby Smart, Georgia Bulldogs: $13.1 Million Salary
Kirby Smart is the highest-paid coach in college football. While the Georgia Bulldogs are coming off consecutive seasons with multiple losses, including back-to-back defeats in the Sugar Bowl, Smart has the highest winning percentage (0.848) in program history, and he has a chance to pass Wallace Butts (140 wins) and Mark Richt (145 wins) on Georgia’s all-time wins list in a much shorter timespan. At a minimum this year, a sixth consecutive season with double-digit wins feels reasonable.
2. Curt Cignetti, Indiana Hoosiers: $13 Million Salary
There is not a salary too high for Curt Cignetti after what he’s done for this Indiana Hoosiers football program. Indiana’s football team never had a 10-win season before his arrival and it hadn’t reached eight or nine wins since 1967. Cignetti has delivered a 27-2 record in his first two seasons at the helm, getting the Hoosiers to the top of college football when that originally seemed impossible outside of a video game. Quite frankly, we feel like some people nationally might even be underrating the Hoosiers entering the 2026 season.
3. Lane Kiffin, LSU Tigers: $13 Million Salary
Lane Kiffin is better than anyone at using the college football coaching carousel to his advantage. Near the end of a historic season with the Ole Miss Rebels, Kiffin turned that success into a deal with the LSU Tigers that would make the program’s successors blush. He also secured a massive financial commitment for both his coaching staff and the Tigers’ roster. History typically suggests that an LSU football coach will have a shot at winning a national title. Anything short of that from Kiffin would feel like a massive disappointment.
4. Ryan Day, Ohio State Buckeyes: $12.6 Million Salary
Not only is Ryan Day one of the highest-paid college football coaches right now, but he boasts an absurd 82-12 record across nine seasons as the Ohio State Buckeyes coach with a national championship. Yet it feels like his seat isn’t entirely safe. There’s added pressure this season on Day because Ohio State entered the fall No. 1 in the preseason AP Top 25 rankings. Anything short of a victory over the Michigan Wolverines followed by a trip to the CFP National Championship Game will likely result in renewed calls for Day to be replaced.
5. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama Crimson Tide: $12.5 Million Salary
Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer is being paid to be the man who immediately followed in the footsteps of Nick Saban. If expectations were reasonable, repeatedly winning double-digit games and making a deep run in the College Football Playoff paired with that massive buyout would be enough to stick around for a while. However, this is Alabama we’re talking about. We suspect that the Crimson Tide might lose four-plus games again in 2026, and if that happens, the calls for a firing are going to grow so much louder. With that said, DeBoer would have another prominent Power 4 job in a heartbeat if Alabama fired him.
6. Lincoln Riley, USC Trojans – $11.5 Million Salary
Among the 10 highest-paid college football coaches in 2026, no school is getting less return on its investment than the USC Trojans. Since leaving Oklahoma for Southern California, Lincoln Riley has lost four-plus games every season that he doesn’t have the Heisman Trophy winner running his offense. The good news for USC is that starting quarterback Jayden Maiava has the talent to be a Heisman finalist this season. We just question if the surrounding pieces of the Trojans roster, which Riley has spent years picking out and developing, are good enough for USC to even be a top-10 team by December.
7. Dabo Swinney, Clemson Tigers: $11.4 Million Salary
Dabo Swinney is unfireable after everything he’s done for the Clemson Tigers. With that said, it certainly feels like the school is paying him for what he did in the past instead of what he’ll do in the future. The Tigers were 3-5 entering the second week of November last season, and Swinney’s program has lost 14 combined games in the last three seasons after having just 13 combined defeats from 2015-2022. He still seems stuck in his ways, which only hurts this school more, and it’s fair to wonder if the right course of action is to let him play out the rest of his contract (2031) rather than pursue an extension.
8. Steve Sarkisian, Texas Longhorns: $11.1 Million Salary
This has to be the year when we finally decide if Texas is back or not. Steve Sarkisian did just become the first coach since Mack Brown (2007-09) to deliver three consecutive seasons with double-digit wins, but he has just one College Football Playoff appearance to show for it. Texas poured tens of millions of dollars into its roster for the 2026 season and we genuinely believe that Arch Manning is capable of performing like the best quarterback in college football. If Sark can’t get it done with this group, it would be fair to wonder if it’s ever going to happen during his tenure.
9. Mike Elko, Texas Longhorns: $10.8 Million Salary
The Texas A&M Aggies signed head coach Mike Elko to a six-year contract extension in November 2025. It came after a 9-0 start to the season when it looked like this team could make a deep CFP run. We then saw the Aggies need to rally back from a 30-3 deficit in the fourth quarter against South Carolina before things spiraled out further with a 27-17 road loss to Texas and then failing to find the end zone in a 10-3 CFP first-round loss to Miami. Elko is a very good coach, but it feels like Texas A&M is more of a nine-win school and paying nearly $11 million per season for that seems like an overpay.
10. Dan Lanning, Oregon Ducks: $10.4 Million Salary
Dan Lanning is probably on the very short list of college football coaches that nearly every single school around the country would love to have. With that said, he’s also been provided with practically unlimited resources by the Oregon Ducks, and for as dominant as this team is in the regular season, they don’t have much to show for it in the College Football Playoff. Fortunately for the Ducks, this team looks more loaded on both sides of the ball than it has been in quite some time. If he can get Oregon to the CFP National Championship Game, Lanning will probably get himself a new deal that makes him one of the four highest-paid college football coaches in 2027.
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