Cal’s Justin Wilcox Among the ACC’s Lowest Paid Coaches

USA Today ranks the salaries of college head football coaches, and two ACC coaches make more than twice what the Cal coach earns

Cal head coach Justin Wilcox talks to line judge Peter Beratta during Saturday's game at Pitt / Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

Cal head coach Justin Wilcox makes less than half what Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Florida State’s Mike Norvell earn each year, but he is not the lowest paid head football coach in the ACC, according to USA Today.

Each year USA Today lists and ranks the salaries of head football coaches at FBS schools that make their finances available to the public. 

Swinney is the highest-paid coach in the ACC at better than $11 million a year, and he is the second-highest paid coach in the country, behind only Georgia’s Kirby Smart, who earns more than $13 million year.

Wilcox earns $4,600,000 annually, which makes him as the 10th-highest-paid ACC coach among the 13 conference coaches whose salaries could be obtained.  Wilcox, who earned about $230,000 in performance bonuses in 2023, has the 45th-highest salary among the 125 FBS head coaches that USA Today could obtain data for.

(Click here for the details of the contract extension Wilcox signed in the winter of 2022)

Duke, Boston College, Stanford and Syracuse are private schools, which do not need to reveal their payments to coaches. The best guess is that Boston College’s Bill O’Brien makes a little more than Wilcox, Duke’s Manny Diaz makes about the same as the Cal coach, and Stanford’s Troy Taylor and Syracuse’s Fran Brown make a little less

The biggest bargain in the ACC seems to be SMU's Rhett Lashlee, who makes less than $2.6 million in his third season as the head coach of the Mustangs, who are currently ranked in the top-25.

What is also interesting is the cost of buying out a coach if he leaves or is forced out. Florida State head coach Mike Norvell has a buyout of $63 million, which is the highest in the ACC, but that is chump change compared to the buyout for Smart, which is more than $118 million.

Wilcox’s buyout if he should leave at the end of this season would be about $16 million.

Here is how ACC head football coaches' salaries rank on USA Today’s list of coaches’ annual salary, based on total pay, which includes school payments and bonus paid in 2023-24. Also included is the buyout as of December 31, 2024 if the coach should discontinue as the school’s head coach:

Dabo Swinney, Clemson -- $11,132,775. Buyout -- $118,083,333

Mike Norvell Florida State -- $10,000,000. Buyout -- $63,788,333

Mario Cristobal, Miami -- $7,783,059. Buyout – Unknown

Pat Narduzzi, Pitt -- $6,699,551. Buyout – Unknown

Dave Doeren, North Carolina State -- $5,965,377. Buyout -- $15,709,416

Jeff Brohm, Louisville -- $5,631,057. Buyout -- $39,325,000

Mack Brown, North Carolina -- $5,000,000. Buyout -- $2,812,500

Dave Clawson, Wake Forest -- $4,781,410. Buyout – Unknown

Brent Pry, Virginia Tech -- $4,775,000. Buyout – Unknown

Justin Wilcox, Cal -- $4,600,000. Buyout -- $15,912,500

Tony Elliott, Virginia -- $4,251,000. Buyout -- $15,225,000

Brent Key, Georgia Tech -- $2,900,000. Buyout -- $5,119,167

Rhett Lashlee, SMU -- $2,360,640. Buyout – Unknown

Bill O’Brien, Boston College – Unknown

Manny Diaz, Duke – Unknown

Troy Taylor, Stanford – Unknown

Fran Brown, Syracuse -- Unknown

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