Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott received a big pay raise — from $1 million to at least $1.6 million a year — on Thursday when the university Board of Trustees approved the contracts of the Tigers’ 10 assistant coaches.
In 2020, Elliott becomes the Tigers’ sole offensive coordinator after Jeff Scott departed to become South Florida’s head coach, and the accompanying pay raise makes him among the highest-paid coaches at the position.
ESPN said the trustees approved a three-year, $5.1 million deal that will pay him $1.6 million in 2020, $1.7 million in 2021 and $1.8 million in the final year of the deal.
Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian will earn $1.6 million this season, as well.
With a salary of $2.5 million a year, Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele is the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the nation.
In 2019, only six assistant football coaches made more than $1.6 million, according to USA Today’s salary database. One of them, Dave Aranda, left his job as defensive coordinator at LSU to become the head coach at Baylor after Matt Rhule departed for the Carolina Panthers.
“It was market, it was deserved,” Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich said of Elliott’s raise, per The State of Columbia, S.C. “Really, really happy that we were able to get this salary package pulled together for him to stay here, and that the board was with us and was able to approve that.”
Elliott, a Clemson alum, was the Tigers’ co-offensive coordinator the past five years. In that time, Clemson was 69-5 and won two national championships.