LSU didn’t waste a single news cycle.
One day the headlines were screaming about Brian Kelly’s $54 million buyout, the next they were drooling over Lane Kiffin’s new seven-year, $91 million term sheet that starts at $13 million a year and comes with a built-in crown.
The math is simple and ruthless: Kiffin opens at $13 million in combined base and supplemental pay, a hair behind Kirby Smart’s $13.28 million and comfortably ahead of Ryan Day’s $12.5 million championship-season haul at Ohio State.
But LSU tucked a delicious little clause into the fine print: win a national title and Kiffin’s salary automatically jumps to $1 more than whatever the highest-paid active FBS coach is making that year. No renegotiation, no awkward phone call to the AD, no waiting for the market to catch up. Just hoist the trophy and collect the throne.
That escalator is LSU’s direct answer to the political firestorm that helped torch Kelly. Governor Jeff Landry spent the fall railing against “guaranteed money with no strings,” and LSU heard him loud and clear.
A big chunk of Kiffin’s potential earnings now lives on the field instead of in the bank vaults.
Fail to win it all and he’s merely rich. Win it all and he’s the richest, period.
The buyout, of course, is still eye-watering.
Fire him without cause before the deal expires in early 2032 and LSU owes 80 percent of the remaining base and supplemental pay, doled out monthly, with zero offset if he lands another job.
Kelly’s contract at least had mitigation language; Kiffin’s has none. The man is fully guaranteed, no discounts allowed. He does, however, owe LSU if he bolts early: $7 million if he leaves after Year 1, dropping by roughly $1 million a year until it hits $1.5 million in 2031. Fair trade.
The perks are predictably plush: 65 rollover private-jet hours per year, 90 days of temporary housing, courtesy cars, a Tiger Stadium suite, priority tickets, country-club membership, full relocation package, and—most importantly—a verbal commitment from sources that the annual NIL/revenue-sharing war chest will sit between $25 million and $30 million.
That’s a massive jump from the $18 million Kelly said he had this season, the one that produced 7–5 and a pink slip.
LSU even threw in a classy touch: whatever postseason bonuses Kiffin would have earned at Ole Miss this year (up to $1 million if the Rebels somehow win the whole thing) will be paid by LSU instead.
His new Tiger bonuses are richer anyway: up to $3 million for a national title ($2 million for reaching the game, another $1 million for winning it) and $1 million for an SEC championship.
Bottom line: Kiffin is being paid like a champion to become one. His 117–53 career record is solid, his four 10-win seasons at Ole Miss are impressive, but the national-title column remains blank. LSU just handed him the most lucrative eraser in college football and a roster budget big enough to rewrite that line.
The contract is equal parts ambition and armor—ambition in the eye-popping dollars and title-triggered escalator, armor in the iron-clad guarantee that keeps the governor’s critics at bay while still protecting the coach. LSU has declared, in the loudest financial terms possible, that it is done being merely good.
Now Kiffin has to prove the price tag was cheap.
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