College football’s cash grab: Coaches, players, schools, conference all are getting paid.

College football’s cash grab: Coaches, players, schools, conference all are getting paid. Show Caption Hide Caption US LBM Coaches Poll: Georgia and Clemson on two very different paths Week 1 of the college football season is in the books and the US LBM Coaches Poll provides us with an early look at how this season could play out. Coaches and players, conferences and universities. Agents and advisors, middle men and parents (of course they’re still getting theirs). But instead of pointing at the boogeyman of player empowerment and coaching greed as the reason college football has drastically changed in the last three years, let’s not stray too far from the obvious. We have a budgetary problem.” It is here where we introduce Appalachian State coach Shawn Clark, a beloved alum and a tough and gritty offensive lineman in the 1990s. His team annually plays a school from the Power Five conferences, and this Saturday travels to Clemson to play a team still shellshocked at the very thought of anything Georgia. “It’s a big task for us,” Clark said during his weekly press conference. “We almost have to play perfect football.” Here’s one more thing: Clark will get $20,000 just for showing up. Because deep in the legalese of Clark’s contract is the candy jar — and it’s a sugar rush of reach these thresholds, earn this cash. That’s right, every game against a Power Five conference team — the guarantee games with the seven-figure paydays that keep athletic departments alive — is easy money for Clark. But he’s not alone, and he’s on the low end of get yours. Here’s Lane Kiffin, an elite coach who has overhauled Ole Miss from irrelevant to College Football Playoff contender in four short years. Last year, the Rebels won 11 games for the first time in school history. Ole Miss began this season by scoring 12,000 points last weekend on FCS opponent Furman, and is one of a handful of legit national championship favorites. If Ole Miss wins the national title this season, Kiffin will have reached every performance benchmark in his contract and earn an extra $4.25 million dollars. I’m no mathematician, but a $9 million annual salary supplemented by a $4.25 million bonus-enhanced national title run equals monetary history. Unless, that is, Georgia (insert: Clemson shudder) coach Kirby Smart — he of the $13 million annual contract — reaches his the benchmarks of his bonus pool. BOWL PROJECTIONS: Big changes to College Football Playoff after Week 1 CALM DOWN: The five biggest overreactions from Week 1 of the season That $13-plus million salary is NFL-level money, and more than any coach has pulled from one season (sorry, Jimbo, not including you or any other coach cashing fat walkaway checks). If universities are going to pay it with the hundreds of millions earned from ever-expanding media rights deals, why wouldn’t coaches take it? Louisville, when it pried hometown hero Jeff Brohm from Purdue after the 2022 season, had an incentive clause that added two years and $14 million to Brohm’s contract if he wins 10 games. And wouldn’t you know it, Brohm last year took the suddenly moribund program and won 10 games in his first season. So the next time you hear a coach complain about NIL, or revenue sharing, or declare the current NIL system is “unsustainable” — it’s not; in fact, it’s booming — don’t fall for it. That’s just code for we’re not the reason your college football doesn’t look the way it once did, players are. Some are thriving and some are learning hard life lessons ― just like, you know, coaches. Some players get a couple of million to quarterback State U, and some coaches get half a million to run a MAC school. It’s all based on market demand, and what everyone is willing to pay. Last year, in the middle of the most controversial championship run in decades, then-Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was peeling off performance-based incentives even though he was suspended for six games for two separate NCAA investigations. By the end of the season, by the time the Wolverines won their first national title since 1997 and Harbaugh had done what he promised he would do, he had earned an extra $3 million in incentives. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2024/09/05/college-football-money-bonuses-lane-kiffin/75079151007/