Mike Gundy Is The 22nd-Highest Paid Coach In The Country

The new coaching salaries came out this week courtesy of USA Today, and Mike Gundy is the 22nd-highest paid coach in the country. His total pay of $3.78 ranks just behind Bobby Petrino and Gary Patterson and just ahead of Kirby Smart and Kyle Whittingham.

Here’s a look at the full top 25.

I also looked at this a different way. I took wins per season (which we looked at earlier today) and divided salary by that number to see how much each school was paying its coach per win.

For example: Iowa State’s Matt Campbell wins, on average, two games a year so far. He has won one game halfway through the season so I presumed they would win one more bringing his average to two. He makes $2 million a year. Thus he makes $1 million per win (this is bad).

Mike Gundy makes $3,775,000 a year and wins on average 8.6 games a year bringing his total to $438,510 per win. That’s pretty solid (see below for details).

This is a little funky because I had to assume that everyone was halfway through the season right now (which they aren’t — some are, some are not). I’m also using wins per season and current salary which, for example, Mike Gundy was obviously not paid $3.78 million for his entire career. But these figures are more or less correct.

Anyway, some interesting finds:

• Kansas is paying David Beaty $1.2 million per win and only $801,109 per year because he wins 0.7 games per year on average. This seems bad!
• Iowa State is paying Matt Campbell $1 million per win (second-highest behind KU).
• Texas is paying Charlie Strong $928,571 per win (fourth-highest in the country!). He averages 5.6 wins and gets paid $5.2 million! Woooo!
• Nick Saban gets $583,400 per win. You can multiply that by five and it would be worth it.
• Mike Gundy gets $438,510 per win. Also worth it. This is the 40th most in the nation.
• Michigan pays Jim Harbaugh nearly $800,000 per win. He makes $9 million overall.
• Dana gets $390,238 per win. Pretty underrated number right there.
• Bill Snyder gets $383,586 per win which is the best deal in the Big 12.
• Toledo pays its coach $48,214 per win. Best deal in the country.

You can look at the full list in this Google Doc.