Three reasons Kirby Smart deserves to be highest paid coach
Georgia football has one of the best coaches in the game right now, and yet he isn’t in the top-10 on 247Sports’ list of highest-paid coaches for 2022.
With so many big contracts going out during the 2021 season, Smart went from being inside the top-10 to now outside of it. However, that circumstance is likely very flexible because well they were winning a national championship and weren’t in the off-season like most of these teams, so the contract could change.
We’re not even considering the bonuses Smart will get for the playoffs and title, so he will be in the thick of that top-10 once everything gets sorted.
However, he needs to be No.1, over all of these coaches, and it’s easy to see why he should be.
Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart deserves to be the highest-paid coach.
If we look at the top-10 of the highest-paid coaches from 247Sports, the list looks like this:
10. Ryan Day, Ohio State — $7.6 million
9. Mario Cristobal, Miami — $8 million
T8. James Franklin, Penn State — $8.5 million
T8. Dabo Swinney, Clemson — $8.5 million
T6. David Shaw, Stanford — $9 million
T6. Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M — $9 million
T4. Mel Tucker, Michigan State — $9.5 million
T4. Brian Kelly, LSU — $9.5 million
2. Nick Saban, Alabama — $9.9 million
1. Lincoln Riley, USC — $10 million
Smart signed a seven-year extension back in 2018 worth $7 million a year and around $49 million total, which put him in the top-5, but not anymore. He deserves so much more than the $7 million he is currently making.
Very few coaches have done what Saban, Swinney, and now Smart did since the playoffs began. Yet among the top-10, five of them haven’t even had a playoff appearance. We all know Saban’s track record. Kelly did it with Notre Dame, Day with Ohio State, Riley with Oklahoma and Swinney with Clemson, but the other five haven’t done much to deserve their respected salaries.
Riley sure hasn’t done anything to deserve a roughly $10million contract from Southern California, but yet he got it. Tucker, while he has turned Michigan State into a competitive football team — his $9.5 million salary was a shocker.
Sure Stanford has money, but is Shaw worth $9 million a year, or is Cristobal worth $8 million a year? These other college football programs aren’t afraid to give coaches big-time raises, and it’s time for Georgia to do the same.
While Smart’s salary change in 2018 was a big one, it’s time to top that and give him what he deserves — $10.5 million if possible.
Here are three reasons why Smart deserves that hefty raise and should be the top-paid college football coach.