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

1. Dabo Swinney – Clemson

• 2020 Salary: $9.3 million

Clemson was always a pretty good football program, but the university is now synonymous with greatness, and it’s largely because of the coach who made the most of his opportunity as an interim coach. Dabo Swinney brought Clemson’s second National Championship in 2016 and only took two more seasons to bring them their third. Now, he’s going into next season as the favorite as Trevor Lawrence looks to win one more before leaving school for the NFL.

About one year ago, Swinney signed his current contract, which lasts 10 years and pays him a total of $93 million. It’s by far the biggest contract in college football history. Nobody is arguing Swinney is overpaid, unless it becomes an argument of a coach making this much money in a sport where the players get an education in return.

Swinney has done so much more for Clemson than winning them football games. Clemson’s student body looked like it could be plateauing in 2010 when it only went up by a little over a thousand compared to the year 2000. now, there are close to 25,000 people in the Tiger’s student body. That’s a 5,000 person increase. Say what you want, but at least a good portion of that is due to the publicity that comes with football success.

Clemson is in the national lexicon each and every year. The top recruits are picking Clemson unlike ever before and Swinney has them as the prominent program in college football. He deserves the title of college football’s highest-paid coach.

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