LSU football coach Les Miles ranks ninth in USA Today’s latest ranking of the highest paid college football coaches in the country, slipping two spots from last year.
Miles’ $4,388,721 salary puts him third in the Southeastern Conference behind Alabama’s Nick Saban, whose salary of $7,087,481 in 2015 topped the list, and Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin, who came in seventh at $5 million.
Miles contract also called for a potential $700,000 in bonuses, of which he has already been paid $100,000, according to USA Today.
His 2015 salary is a fraction of the $15 million the school would have had to fork over to buy out Miles’ contract, as had been discussed late in the season as the Tigers nosedived from a 7-0 record to finishing 8-3. LSU President F. King Alexander has said the high buyout played a huge factor into the university retaining the coach.
Miles earned $4,369,582 in 2014, good enough for seventh, and $3,856,417 in 2012, which was good enough for fifth that year.
Two of the main targets for the fans’ anger at the end of the season have been offensive coordinator Cam Cameron and first-year defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. The two coordinators both sit in the top 10, second and ninth respectively, in USA Today’s ranking of assistant coaches’s salaries.
Cameron pulled in $1,519,734 in 2015, while Steele earned $1,005,000, according to USA Today. Running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Frank Wilson ranked 30th at $676,067, and defensive line coach Ed Orgeron came in 91st at $465,000.
LSU’s assistant coaching staff as a whole is the highest paid staff in the country at a total of $5,471,236, topping Auburn, Alabama, Georgia and Texas A&M in the top five.
Rounding out the top five highest-paid coaches behind Saban are Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops and Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher.
