Brent Venables, Sam Pittman and Mike Gundy lead the list of coaches under pressure in 2025.
Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian enters the 2025 season with the No. 3 largest salary in college football at $10.6 million, according to USA TODAY’s latest review of available records.
How much does Texas pay Steve Sarkisian?
Texas is slated to pay a base of $10.6 million to Steve Sarkisian this year, but that number can go up significantly based on certain incentives throughout the year. School Pay includes $300,000 ‘one-time special payment’ Sarkisian received on or before April 1, 2024.
How much is Steve Sarkisian’s buyout at Texas?
As of December 1, 2024, Steve Sarkisian’s buyout is $55 million, which ranks as the No. 8 most-expensive in USA TODAY’s available data.
How much can Steve Sarkisian earn in bonuses?
The most the Texas coach can earn in bonuses this season is $1.85 million.
The information above applies to the data obtained for the 2024 contract season: To see the methodology behind this data, click here.
“Buyout Owed” figures are the amount a school would owe coach if it fired him without cause on Dec. 1, 2024. Many of these amounts are expressly subject to coach’s duty to make good-faith efforts to find another job, with income from that employment offsetting the amount owed. If mitigation and offset are not addressed in contract, coach still may have obligation to make efforts in that regard. The amount listed may be owed to coach over an extended period of time, rather than as a lump sum at termination. Amounts may take into account per-day pro-rating for a partial contract year.
CREDITS
By Steve Berkowitz, Sean Dougherty and Leo Wotzak; Robert Lattinville of WME, who represents college coaches and athletics directors as well as NCAA member schools
