While the entire college football world debates player compensation, head coaches are quietly securing contracts worth generational wealth. Curt Cignetti’s National Championship run bumped him to being the second-highest paid HC in college football, while Lane Kiffin and his jaw-dropping $91 million contract earned him the third spot. Alabama Senator and former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville took a shot at these ballooning figures.

“I was making money,” he said during a Senate roundtable. “Not as much as they are making now. Why do they make that much money? It’s ridiculous to be paying $9-10 million to coaches when a lot of that money can go to players.”

He doesn’t have to look beyond his own state to give an example. Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer’s base pay was $10.25 million for the 2025 season. Should he last for the entirety of his contract, he will end his tenure with $87 million in his account. The school’s president, Peter Mohler, will be making only $800,000. The disparity is huge, despite both being government employees. More often than not, the highest-paid public employee in states is either a football or a basketball coach.

Ironically, Tommy Tuberville has also earned quite a lot as a football coach. When he left Auburn in 2008, the university paid him a $5.1 million buyout after he resigned. Later, when he left the University of Cincinnati in 2016, he again received a large payment of about $2 million. So, even he earned a big bag at a time when money was usually paid less.

There’s a lot that allows schools to pay college football coaches this much. Athletic Director Greg Byrne explained to NPR that this financial firepower is fueled by a mix of ticket sales, booster donations, and massive television and conference revenue deals. According to a 2023 study by the Knights Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, P4 schools are expected to secure 47% of their revenue from the CFP, media rights, and other conference revenues by 2032. Byrne also said that college sports enjoy this kind of money because it has many tax benefits, and there are also subsidies from universities and governments. Tuition also comes into play here.

But the question is, how many programs are getting a value for money on that investment? According to sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, if schools do not see a revenue that is equal to the coach’s salary, there is a problem. Thankfully for Alabama, things have at least been satisfactory. Moreover, football is often the primary revenue generator for the entire athletics department. Sports that lack funding rely on the successes that come from such investments. If there is no success, programs are ready to fire coaches with whom they have spent decades.

The issue gets even more complex when individual state legislatures start getting involved. The Mississippi House of Representatives recently passed a significant bill to make NIL earnings for college athletes exempt from state income tax. If the bill becomes law, college athletes in Mississippi would not pay state income tax on money earned from brand deals, sponsorships, or revenue-sharing payments. Mississippi is attempting to level the playing field with SEC rivals in Florida, Tennessee, and Texas, which have no state income tax at all, and Arkansas, which passed a similar NIL exemption in 2025.

Ohio State alum, Bobby Carpenter raised an alarm against such a move. The former pro linebacker felt those taxes can be used to pay for the government employees that desperately need it.

“I take issue with this, because there are people that I think need those pension payments, from the military, Social Security, and stuff like that. If you want to waive that for elderly people, like retired folks—I get it,” Carpenter said. But he didn’t stop there, and went on to criticize how NIL is destroying the very purpose of going to college.

“I don’t know what we’re teaching young men and young women in some states, where some schools are getting NIL. The purpose of going to college you’re growing up and learning things. I’m not sure what we’re teaching these athletes now. If you’re saying, ‘Hey, by the way, you’re going to make all this money, but you don’t have to pay taxes,’ tell me exactly how that works.”

On the other hand, Tommy Tuberville’s suggestion of adding the saved money to NIL payments might complicate an already chaotic environment. With more money in the pool, NIL collectives can go berserk in recruitment, already having made multimillionaires out of athletes who are barely 20 years old. But the Senator’s idea is in the right place, he just needs to nudge it in the right direction.

College football coaches to see a salary cap?

The House Settlement has already put a cap on NIL payments from the school. Plus, Donald Trump himself has taken charge of regulating NIL and will soon sign an executive order. If the government finally takes action on these issues, coaching salaries will not reach those huge figures, according to ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas.

“If Congress comes in and they’re going to limit the players, they’re not going to let the coaches make the kind of money they’re making,” Bilas said, citing On3. “They’re going to say, ‘All right, you get a cap now too.’ So, head coach at Alabama, you’re not getting $12 million while the players are getting limited. You’re going to be limited, too, and we’re going to limit things across the board and make things a little more sane.”

In October 2025, Rep. Michael Baumgartner tabled the Correcting Opportunity and Accountability in Collegiate Hiring (COACH) Act. The bill, if passed, will guarantee that the annual compensation any athletic employee receives from a school does not go beyond 10 times the tuition and “required fees” of a “first-time, full-time undergraduate” of the recent academic year. Baumgartner stressed that college sports are a subsidized avenue, and not a “professional enterprise.”

It will be some time before there is a marked change in the financials involving college football coaching. Until then, coaches like Kalen Deboer and more high-profile names will continue making millions in a free market setup for a very lucrative sport.