Gary Patterson at top of Big 12 with TCU football, but second in pay
Gary Patterson is No. 1 in the Big 12 in the standings, but not in pay.
The TCU football coach earned $5.1 million in 2015, according the school’s most recent tax filing. That is one of the top 10 salaries in the country, but not more than first-year Texas coach Tom Herman, according to a database of salaries published by USA Today.
Herman will make $5.5 million, not counting bonuses that could total $725,000. The newspaper annually publishes a list of salaries for FBS coaches.
Patterson is the ninth-highest paid coach on this year’s list, and Herman is the eighth.
Patterson’s Horned Frogs are ranked fourth in the country at 7-0 and lead the Big 12 going into Saturday’s game at Iowa State. Herman and the Longhorns are 3-4 following an overtime loss to Oklahoma State last week.
The Frogs and Longhorns go head-to-head next week in Fort Worth.
Patterson, 57, in his 17th season as head coach at TCU, received a six-year contract extension last year that will take him through the 2021 season. He is the winningest football coach in school history with a record of 156-54 going into the Iowa State game.
Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State is the next highest-paid Big 12 coach, at $4.2 million with $900,000 possible in bonuses.
Next are West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen and Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury, each at $3.5 million not counting bonuses, then Kansas State’s Bill Snyder at $3.2 million before bonuses.
Oklahoma is paying first-time head coach Lincoln Riley $2.1 million, and Iowa State is paying the same to third-year coach Matt Campbell, who has the Cyclones in the AP Top 25 rankings for the first time since 2005.
David Beaty is earning $1.6 million at Kansas, with $1.75 million available in bonuses.
USA Today did not have pay information for Baylor’s Matt Rhule, off to a winless start in his first season in Waco.
Carlos Mendez: 817-390-7760, @calexmendez
This story was originally published October 26, 2017 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Gary Patterson at top of Big 12 with TCU football, but second in pay."