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Byline: Tom Schad and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Nearly three decades ago, Michigan State University offered Tom Izzo a five-year, $540,000 contract to be its next men's basketball coach. He [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY With all of the team trophies handed out and all of the final poll votes counted Tuesday, college football head coaches at Bowl Subdivision public [...]

Byline: Jacob Unruh and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Three years ago, Madi Madory confidently approached a man many college football stars respectfully fear. Madory had just unceremoniously fired her bocce [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY A congressional committee report released Thursday shed new light not only on the tens of millions of additional dollars some top-level college sports programs have [...]

Byline: Brent Schrotenboer and Steve Berkowitz USA TODAY Michigan State athletics booster Mat Ishbia didn't really consider the financial risk last year when he decided to help fund a fully [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Months after leading Utah to its first Pac-12 Conference football championship, coach Kyle Whittingham and university officials negotiated a new contract that not only is [...]

Byline: Dan Wolken and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY By the time Joe Osovet learned he wasn't going to be retained as the tight ends coach at Tennessee under Josh Heupel [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Even by the up-always-up standards of college football coaches' compensation, the past week has redefined the top end of the pay scale in ways that [...]

Byline: Paul Myerberg and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott and the league's CEO group have mutually agreed to terminate his contract one year ahead of schedule, the [...]

Byline: Tom Schad, Steve Berkowitz, and Dian Zhang, USA TODAY Sam Pittman got his first job as an NCAA Division I offensive line coach more than 25 years ago, at [...]

Byline: Tom Schad and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY The 2019 college football season is only halfway done, so the coaching carousel hasn't really started to spin. Rutgers, which fired Chris [...]

Byline: Tom Schad, Steve Berkowitz, and John Kelly, USA TODAY On an unseasonably warm evening in October 2017, Gus Malzahn arrived at his postgame news conference wearing a striped Auburn [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Mostly, college football guarantee-game contracts are about the money. But plenty of other details matter, such as unique particulars from the agreements for these games: [...]

Byline: Tim Sullivan, Steve Berkowitz, and John Kelly, USA TODAY LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Rick Pitino's contract was founded on faith. It bound the University of Louisville to its men's basketball [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAYWhat's the best way to reward the man who makes more money than any coach in college sports?Give him the opportunity to make even more money, [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz and Tom Schad, USA TODAY Sunday didn't bring the wave of firings that usually comes the day after the conclusion of the college football regular season, but [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz and Amanda Caffey, USA TODAY Total payout is the main component in college football non-conference game contracts. But it's far from the only element. Here are notable [...]

Byline: Tom Schad and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Assistant coaches might not have as much leverage in contract negotiations as their head coaching counterparts, but there are plenty of unique [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY Many people would like to tell off or ignore their boss and get paid for it. Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy can do that very [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports The early college football schedule is almost exclusively comprised of non-conference games. The games are being governed by individually negotiated contracts. Here are [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports The college football season gets underway in earnest Thursday, and by the end of the weekend more than $70 million will be headed [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports Anyone looking for evidence that Geno Auriemma might soon walk away from the women's basketball juggernaut he has created at Connecticut is going [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports A college football coaching deal affecting South Florida and Texas likely will bring satisfaction to school officials from at least UCLA, Virginia and [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports An already exceptional year in coach Jim Harbaugh's contract and an exceptional year by Michigan's football team would produce this extraordinary outcome: A [...]

Byline: Brent Schrotenboer,, Steve Berkowitz, and Christopher Schnaars On a warm, sunny day last month at the University of Iowa, head football coach Kirk Ferentz wore a white shirt and [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports LSU's decision about whether to fire football coach Les Miles might come down to a simple matter of recent wins and losses. However, [...]

Byline: Erik Brady, Steve Berkowitz and Christopher Schnaars, USA TODAY Sports What, in dollars and cents, is a national title worth? That's hard to say. But the case of Kevin [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports It long has been a practice for universities that want to hire a coach to pay the 'buyout' to get him out of [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports Dino Babers is a football coach who was traded for a basketball game. Babers' job change from Eastern Illinois to Bowling Green stands [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports College football head coaches' contracts include a broad range of perks, bonuses and arrangements. Here are some from the USA TODAY Sports annual [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports In 2013, two college football head coaches made at least $5 million a year -- and both had won a national championship. In [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports The six-year, $30 million contract football coach Kevin Sumlin signed last week with Texas A&M has buyout provisions that would result in Sumlin [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports Their employment contracts were clear: When the head football coaches of 11 major public universities broke their contracts late last year and accepted [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports On a day when legal wrangling over the use of college athletes' names and likenesses prompted video game manufacturer Electronic Arts to announce [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports Citing the business climate and costs of litigation, the NCAA announced Wednesday that it would not renew its licensing agreement with Electronic Arts [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports The NCAA's announcement Wednesday that it would not renew its licensing agreement with Electronic Arts for a college football video game included these [...]

Byline: Erik Brady, Jodi Upton, and Steve Berkowitz Kentucky is the Bluegrass State, where the cash is always greener. Just ask the University of Louisville's Rick Pitino, the highest-paid coach [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz and Jodi Upton, @ByBerkowitz, @jodiupton, USA TODAY Sports Louisville athletics director Tom Jurich already had one of the most attractive employment arrangements in college sports when he [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports Butler men's basketball coach Brad Stevens made nearly $1.2 million during the 2011 calendar year, according to the federal tax return the school [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz Any NFL team interested in hiring Penn State's Bill O'Brien as its head coach is going to have to want him really badly -- or he is [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports Although no college athletic program likes seeing a winning coach leave, it can profit from the ordeal. A USA TODAY Sports analysis of [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports When is an incentive bonus not an incentive bonus that becomes an incentive bonus again? When Ohio State coach Urban Meyer's representatives and [...]

Byline: Erik Brady, Steve Berkowitz, and Jodi Upton, @ByBerkowitz, @ByErikBrady, @jodiupton When John Calipari took Memphis men's basketball to the brink of a national championship in 2008, he earned about [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz, @ByBerkowitz, USA TODAY Sports The NCAA's multimedia and marketing contract for its showcase event -- the Division I men's basketball tournament -- contemplates further expansion of the [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz The Southeastern Conference's 12 current schools each stand to add about $8million a year in revenue under soon-to-be-renegotiated television agreements. But that will be well short of [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski had a banner year in 2010 in more ways than one, while the Notre Dame football program didn't have only a [...]

Coaches' contracts with Football Bowl Subdivision schools can be more than a matter of money. Some of the more unusual provisions of current deals: Army: Pays Rich Ellerson $50,000 for [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz When the No. 1-ranked Oregon football team plays its regular-season finale Saturday at Oregon State, Oregon coach Chip Kelly will have a lot more at stake than [...]

Byline: Steve Berkowitz As the college football season winds down, coaches' bonuses are adding up, according to an examination of contracts by USA TODAY. One big winner is Chris Petersen [...]

Byline: Jack Carey; Steve Berkowitz The success of the Big Ten Network, which returned $72 million to the league in the 2008-09 fiscal year, had an impact on the $1.86 [...]