LSU football coach salary, contract details

In November 2021, LSU pulled off a move that stunned much of the college football world by hiring Brian Kelly as its next head coach.

Not only had athletic director Scott Woodward and the Tigers managed to find a sitting head coach who had won 73 percent of his career games and appeared in five New Year’s Six Bowl games, but the program they managed to keeping him away was none other than Notre Dame. , one of the most accomplished and mythologized entities in sport.

At the time, it was widely seen as a coup, with an SEC program throwing its weight behind hiring a proven winner who was one of college football’s most decorated coaches.

Less than three years later, things have changed.

After a strong start in 2022, when the Tigers went 10-4 and reached the SEC Championship Game, Kelly guided LSU to a 10-3 finish in 2023, which seemed disappointing given that the team was led by Heisman Trophy winner and star wideout Jayden Daniels. wide receiver Malik Nabers, both of whom were top-10 picks in the 2024 NFL Draft.

If last season was a disappointment, the 2024 campaign was even worse.

A once-promising season for the Tigers has been derailed in recent weeks, with Kelly’s team losing three straight games after a 6-1 start in which it rose to No. 7 in the U.S. LBM Coaches Poll. The latest of those setbacks was the most grueling yet, with LSU losing 27-16 on the road to what had been a 4-5 Florida team after a 32-point loss to Texas.

The slip-up raised questions not only about this specific group of Tigers, but also about Kelly. Is he still the right man to lead the program in the deep and ruthlessly competitive SEC?

Here’s what you need to know about Kelly’s contract, including his buyout and overall value:

SALARY DATABASE: Find out where Brian Kelly ranks among the highest paid college football coaches

Brian Kelly LSU Contract Details

Contract duration: 10 years
Contract value: $95 million

For LSU and Woodward to get their big-name, headline-grabbing hire, they needed to write a big check.

When he decided to leave Notre Dame after 12 seasons, Kelly became one of the highest paid college football coaches. With a total salary of $9,975,000, he is No. 8 among FBS coaches in USA TODAY’s coaching salary database.

Of the seven coaches ahead of him, four are from the SEC, led by Georgia’s Kirby Smart at No. 1.

Brian Kelly buyout

If Kelly is fired without cause on December 1, he would be owed $61,738,333 under the terms of the contract he signed on April 6, 2022.

In the event he is terminated without cause, Kelly is expected to receive 90% of his remaining base salary and additional compensation that would have been paid to him for the remaining term of his contract, which runs until December 31, 2031 – plus any longevity compensation in proportion to the year of termination of employment.

The buyout would be paid to Kelly in monthly installments over the remaining term.

Kelly’s buyout is the fourth highest in the FBS, behind Smart, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer and Florida State’s Mike Norvell.

There is only one example in college football history of a school paying a buyout of this size, and it happened last year in the SEC, when Texas A&M paid over 77 million dollars to oust Jimbo Fisher. This is the only buyout over $22 million ever by an FBS school.

Brian Kelly record

Heading into LSU’s game Saturday against Vanderbilt, Kelly has a career record of 192-73 at the FBS level. This mark includes previous practice stops at (in order) Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.

After going 34-6 at Cincinnati and 113-40 at Notre Dame, Kelly failed to live up to the immense expectations that greeted him at LSU, a well-resourced program in which each of his three immediate predecessors at full-time won a national championship. Near the end of his third season, Kelly had a 26-11 record with the Tigers.

Here’s a look at his year-by-year record during his time in Baton Rouge:

2022: 10-4
2023: 10-3
2024: 6-4
Overall: 26-11

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