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

8. Tom Herman – Texas

2020 Salary: $6.8 million

Tom Herman might be the man with the hottest seat on this list. Honestly, Herman might have the hottest seat of any coach in college football. The Longhorns brass is paying him one of the highest salaries in the country to win, and despite having a team that came into last season as the 9th-ranked team, they ended up 25th, and just barely in the final season poll.

It was a year they were supposed to compete for the Big 12 Championship. Instead, they had to settle for upsetting Utah in the Alamo Bowl. They ended up losing to not only Oklahoma and Baylor, the two top teams in the conference, but they also lost to Iowa State and TCU, who were not so great. Heck, they needed a field goal as time expired to beat Kansas.

This is the year Herman has to prove his worth. Just look at their schedule. They have to play LSU early on the road, and that’s going to be a tough one, but that has nothing to do with the Big 12 championship. In conference play, their road games are Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Kansas and Texas Tech. Not only do they get to play Baylor and Oklahoma at home, the two best teams in the conference, but they get to skip two extremely hard places to play on the road in Morgantown (WVU) and Ames (Iowa State).

With everything falling in Texas’ favor, and with Lincoln Riley once again trying to replace a quarterback for the third season in a row, it could be time for Texas. Herman at least has to show major improvement and Sam Ehlingher has to become one of the country’s best quarterbacks for Herman to return unscathed.