Matt Rhule’s $74 million Nebraska contract among heftiest in college football

LINCOLN – Nebraska has officially become one of the top-paying jobs in college football – for both a head coach and his assistants.

Additional details emerged Monday about the Huskers’ pact with coach Matt Rhule, previously announced by the athletic department to be eight years.

Rhule’s contract is for $74 million – $9.25 million per season – with 90% guaranteed, Athletic Director Trev Alberts said. His contract has a much lower base salary in the first four years, growing as the contract goes on. NU’s back-end exposure, in those final years, will be smaller due the contract having a 90% guarantee.

Nebraska’s new coach will make $5.5 million from his start date until the end of 2023, with the salary going up as follows: $6.5 million in 2024, $7.5 million in 2025; $8.5 million in 2026; $10 million in 2027; $11.5 million in 2028; $12 million in 2029 and $12.5 million in 2030. Rhule gets deferred compensation stay bonuses of $1 million on March 1, 2025, March 1, 2027, March 1, 2029 and Dec. 31, 2030 if he’s still NU’s head coach on those respective dates.

Should Rhule choose to leave Nebraska on his own, his buyout starts at $7 million in 2023 and goes down to $6 million in 2024, $5 million in 2025, $4 million in 2026, $3.5 million in 2027, 2028 and 2029, and $2 million in 2030.

The salary pool for 10 on-field assistants will be $7 million. NU will allow Rhule to sign position assistants to two-year contracts and coordinators to three-year contracts. He gets 50 hours of private jet hours. It is, in short, a remarkably-friendly contract to Rhule on all fronts, given he’ll receive some part of his buyout from Carolina.

“It was really important to me that we have the resources necessary to go out and hire the very best staff that we can find,” Alberts said. “We have a big vision and goals and plans for our football program and we're going to resource it in a way that allows us to be successful.”

Nebraska has already begun to assemble its new staff. Defensive backs coach Evan Cooper – most recently with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers – has already come aboard along with former Panthers assistant defensive line coach Terrance Knighton and assistant strength coach Corey Campbell, who left their posts in Carolina for the NU opportunity.

Rhule’s deal dwarfs that of previous Husker coaches as the cost of business in the sport has exploded. Scott Frost signed on at seven years and $35 million in December 2017, a figure that was roughly top-15 nationally. Mike Riley in December 2014 came aboard for five years and $14.5 million, around the top 40 in the country. Bo Pelini (five years and $5.5 million) and Bill Callahan (six years and $9 million) were similar ranges in their initial contracts.

At $9.25 million average per season, Rhule – who made $4.1 million annually at Baylor – and Nebraska are squarely inside the top 10 nationally based in 2022 salaries. Alabama’s Nick Saban leads the way at $11.7 million per year with Big Ten coaches Mel Tucker of Michigan State and Ryan Day of Ohio State also among the best compensated at $9.5 million each. Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh ($7.05 million) was 12th.

“The University of Nebraska was committed to changing the way our outcomes were happening,” University of Nebraska President Ted Carter said, “and picking Coach Rhule, as our top choice, was a commitment to that.”

Contract negotiations with Rhule – which included, according to a source, working with the Carolina Panthers on Rhule’s massive buyout – were a significant hurdle in the process of hiring Rhule. Three or four times, Alberts thought the negotiations had come to an impasse. So did Rhule, recounting a moment when he sat on his couch and lamented what he believed at the time was a lost opportunity.

“When I thought we weren’t going to be able to do it, I remember sitting on the couch and being like, ‘damn,’ that was the right place for me, and it just didn’t kind of didn’t work out,” Rhule said. “I think that’s a great thing. These job things happen so fast. You talk to them, they offer the job, you move. I had a moment where I didn’t think it was going to work out, and that’s no fault of Trev’s and really no fault of our own. It just wasn’t going to be able to happen. And I sat there and I was really disappointed.

“When they called back and say ‘hey, let’s try something else,’ I knew then this is where I’m supposed to be.”

Ultimately, the deal got done on Thanksgiving morning.

How the assistant money divvies out remains to be seen. Outgoing offensive coordinator Mark Whipple became NU’s highest-paid non-head coach ever this season at $875,000. Incoming play-caller Marcus Satterfield made $900,000 this year at South Carolina while multiple Big Ten coordinators make well into seven figures, led by Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles at $1.9 million.

Ohio State is the gold standard of assistant salaries with a pool of $8.78 million this year that leads the nation.

Meanwhile, Nebraska has been the low standard for coaching buyouts in recent history.

A 2020 study by Athletic Director U revealed that no school in the country spent more money paying off football and men’s basketball coaches since 2005 than the Huskers, who doled out nearly $28 million overall in that span. That included buyouts to Callahan ($3.13 million), Pelini ($6.54 million) and Riley ($6.2 million) along with men’s basketball’s Doc Sadler and Tim Miles.

Add Frost’s total of just north of $16 million this fall and athletic directors who were forced out in that span – Steve Pederson ($2.2 million), Shawn Eichorst ($1.7 million) and Bill Moos ($2,972,044) – and the new bottom line is north of $50 million.​