10 most overpaid college football coaches
By John Buhler
9. Rich Rodriguez, Arizona Wildcats
Arizona Wildcats head coach Rich Rodriguez will make $2,860,000 in total pay this season. Rodriguez’s $2,500,000 2016 contract with the Wildcats has him as the 41st highest paid head coach in Division I football.
The Wildcats are the third Power 5 team that Rodriguez has been in charge of in his coaching career. He had a great deal of success with the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Big East from 2001 to 2007 before failing in the Big Ten with the Michigan Wolverines from 2008-10.
Rodriguez may be alive in Tucson, but his Wildcats have been largely underwhelming in the Pac-12 South four of his five years in Arizona. Though he has made a bowl each of his first four seasons on the job, the Wildcats have only had one 10-win season back in 2014.
He now faces a new predicament in his fifth year on the job: Arizona may not go bowling. The Wildcats are 2-5 (0-4) on the season and might be the worst team in the Pac-12 South. Arizona is below-.500 in Pac-12 play under Rodriguez in four plus seasons. Not to say he needs to go, but Rodriguez might be overpaid at this basketball school.