College football’s top 25 highest-paid coaches for 2020 season

16. Pat Fitzgerald – Northwestern

• 2020 Salary: $5.17 million

This one is another lucky one, as Pat Fitzgerald coaches for Northwestern University, a private school that is not required to release the salary figures of its employees. However, because Fitzgerald made so much money, it has to be itemized on the university’s tax returns. So, the school paid a ton of money to their long-time coach.

Fitzgerald has been with the Wildcats since the 2006 season. He took over for Randy Walker after a loss in the Sun Bowl. It’s not like he was taking over for a team with lofty expectations. If Northwestern makes a bowl game and beats a rival, things are just fine. Honestly, they mostly just want to talk about all the famous alumni they have in the media world.

Fitzgerald has been a highly-desirable coach in the past. There were reports just one year ago that NFL teams came calling to see if he was available, but he ended up turning them down. He obviously thought last year would turn out better than it did after Northwestern put up a four-win season and ended up last in the Big Ten West.

This is a very tough conference to be in, but they’ve been competitive before. Just two seasons ago, they beat a ranked Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Iowa team. Then, they beat a good Utah team in the Holiday Bowl. Fitzgerald is a good coach despite coming off a bad season. They didn’t get a high volume of recruits, but with three four-star recruits coming in 2020 he’s getting the best bang for his buck, and snuck into the top 40 in terms of recruitment this season. Fitzgerald is sneaky good, but when his check clears it becomes a lot less sneaky.