Gators made Todd Grantham one of NCAA’s highest paid DCs to keep him from Bengals

The Florida Gators really didn’t want to lose Todd Grantham to the Cincinnati Bengals.

So much so, in fact, the Gators gave Grantham an extension one year after originally inking him to a deal:

After meeting with the Bengals about a coaching vacancy, Todd Grantham is staying on as #Florida's DC and the Gators extended his contract through 2022 and increased his salary to $1.8 million annually.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) February 14, 2019

Further context from Scott Carter of Florida’s official website is staggering:

“Taking a pro-active approach and working in-step with Mullen, the Gators extended Grantham’s contract through 2022 and increased his salary to $1.8 million annually, placing Grantham among the five highest-paid defensive coordinators in college football.”

That’s one of the problems of trying to poach from the college game is the wealth of money thrown at coordinators.

In this case, the Bengals targeted someone who was already comfortable where he was and he would have been foolish to not at least hear what the Bengals had to say.

For the Bengals, this was the third known candidate to not get the gig and it sends them back to the drawing board for a process that is taking an unusually long time compared to the rest of the league.