Mel Tucker is getting quite the raise.
One year after making $2.4 million in his first season with Colorado, new Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker is set to more than double his yearly salary. According to Associate Press Sports Writer Larry Page, Michigan State and Tucker have agreed to a six-year contract worth $5.5 million per season.
Michigan State has yet to make an official announcement regarding Tucker’s salary, but is expected to do so in the near future.
That salary would have made Tucker the 4th-highest paid coach in the Big Ten and 12th-highest paid coach nationally according to USA Today’s database of football coaching salaries. Notable within the conference is that Purdue’s Jeff Brohm was paid $6.6 million in 2019 as part of his seven-year extension with the school. His salary figure will be much lower in 2020 and the average annual value of his contract is lower than Tucker’s. For all intents and purposes, Tucker will be the third-highest paid coach in the conference in 2020 behind only Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and Penn State’s James Franklin.
The deal is a significant step up from what Mark Dantonio was making at Michigan State. Dantonio only made more than $5.5 million in one season, 2013, after getting a large retention bonus as part of a contract extension. That year he made $5.6 million. Dantonio was paid just short of $4.4 million in 2017, 2018 and, 2019. He also received a $4.3 million retention bonus three weeks before announcing his retirement on February 4.
