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Alabama

Nick Saban contract extension details revealed

20200517_134556by:Justin Rudolph•08/04/21
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Earlier in the week, Nick Saban agreed to a contract extension with the University of Alabama to continue to lead their football program. The contract is for eight years, $84.8 million. This extension will keep Saban coaching the Crimson Tide through the 2028-29 season. It has an annual increase of $400,000 added every year.

Saban will make $11.5 million in the final year of this contract. That sum will be the most ever a college coach will make in a season.

The seven-time national championship-winning coach is already the highest-paid football coach in the NCAA. He will make $9.1 million which is more than LSU’s head football coach Ed Orgeron at $8.7 million. Rounding out the top four highest-paid coaches in college football are Dabo Swinney of Clemson at $8.3 million and Jimbo Fisher of Texas A&M at $7.5 million. Ironically, three of the four coaches are in the western division of the SEC.

Why Saban is getting extended

Five of the six championships Alabama has won under Saban have come in the past 10 years, which is more than the other three highest-paid coaches combined. It’s the equivalent of winning a national championship every other year. Since 2010, the Crimson Tide has seen 38 players drafted in the first round of the NFL draft. The next closest school is Ohio State University with 19 players.

Since Saban arrived on campus excluding his first season at the helm, there hasn’t been a year that the Crimson Tide wasn’t in the national championship picture. Sans year one, they only have one season where they lost more than two games. In that time, the lowest ranking Alabama has seen in the pre-AP poll is third, but their lowest finishing spot was 10 which came in the same season where they lost three games in 2010. The average recruiting class ranking for Alabama is second. Saban has produced results in recruiting and on the field.

(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)