Where Lincoln Riley's Salary Ranks Among College Football Coaches

Just a decade ago as an assistant at East Carolina, Riley was paid $150,000 and now he's paid $7.67 million, more than a 50-fold increase in salary.

John E. Hoover | Oct 14, 2021

Where Lincoln Riley's Salary Ranks Among College Football Coaches /

Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley’s annual salary of $7.672 million ranks fifth nationally, according to data published Thursday by USA Today.

The newspaper annually lists college football coaches’ salaries, and this year Riley comes up behind Alabama’s Nick Saban ($9.753 milion), LSU’s Ed Oregon ($9.013 million), Stanford’s David Shaw ($8.925 million) and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney ($8.371 million).

Riley ranks just ahead of Florida’s Dan Mullen ($7.570 million), Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher ($7.5 million), Georgia’s Kirby Smart ($7.134 million), Ohio State’s Ryan Day ($6.615 million) and TCU’s Gary Patterson ($6.013 million).

This year’s figures include adjustments for “pandemic reductions,” as many coaches took a reduced salary to help offset losses by college athletic departments nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Riley’s 10 percent reduction came sip to $214,583 for the 2019-20 fiscal year, according to the report.

Riley also has a $25.2 million buyout as of Dec. 1, a figure that ranks behind Fisher ($95.6 million), Swinney ($47.5 million), Saban ($38.4 million), Day ($28.4 million), Indiana’s Tom Allen ($30 million) and Iowa State’s Matt Campbell ($28.3 million).

Just 10 years ago, Riley made 1.9 percent of what he’s paid today: $150,000 as an assistant coach at East Carolina. In 2014, his final year with the Pirates, he made $278,800. Bob Stoops hired Riley in 2015 at a rate of $500,000, and when he succeeded Stoops as Oklahoma’s head coach in 2017, Riley’s salary was $2.112 million.

Riley is easily the Big 12’s highest-paid coach, outdistancing Patterson, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian (14th nationally at $5.45 million), Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy (30th at $4.203 million), Campbell ($4 million), Texas Tech’s Matt Wells (50th at $3.034 million), West Virginia’s Neal Brown (52nd at $2.998 million), Kansas State’s Chris Klieman (55th at $2.915 million), Kansas’ Lance Leipold (57th at $2.8 million) and Baylor’s Dave Aranda (undisclosed).

Riley's team is 6-0 this season and ranked No. 4 going into this week's home game against TCU. He's 51-8 as a head coach and has four Big 12 Championships in his four seasons as the Sooners' skipper.

Published Oct 14, 2021

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.