A look at the take-home pay of your football coach

Consider this fascinating piece of sports journalism from USA Today: a breakdown of the salaries of Division I football coaches.

The range is astounding: from the $300,000 paid Miami of Ohio's Mike Haywood to Nick Saban's $5.17 million.

Some of the figures may surprise you: For example, who's the best paid coach in the ACC (you get three guesses)? Who makes more: Steve Spurrier or Derek Dooley?

Rest assured, Urban Meyer will be riding off into supposed retirement on a large pot of gold. The soon-to-be former Gator coach gets $4 million. But he lost to Dan Mullen, a potential successor, who ONLY makes $1.2 million. He also lost to Jimbo Fisher at Florida State. He makes less than half Meyer's salary. (Of course, the same pay comparison can be made about the outcome of the Auburn-Alabama game. But we won't make it.)

Note: This is the university-paid salaries only. TV and endorsement deals and possible bonuses actually put Saban's salary closer to the $6 million mark. You can check the chart with the story for those incidental extras.

And if you want to know the difference between a football-first conference like the SEC vs. one that hopes to get there (Et tu, ACC?), notice the difference in what the top coaches from each conference make.

Push here for the entire USA Today package.

In the meantime, here are some highlights extrapolated by the Expats.

Top 5
1. Nick Saban, Alabama, $5.17 million.
2. Mack Brown, Texas, $5.1 million
3. Bob Stoops, Oklahoma, $4.275 million
4. Urban Meyer, Florida, $4 million
5. Les Miles, LSU, and Kirk Ferentz, Iowa, $3.8 million

SEC
1. Saban
2. Meyer
3. Miles
4. Mark Richt, Georgia, $2.8 million
5. Bobby Petrino, Arkansas, $2.7 million

ACC
1. Jim Grobe, Wake Forest (Ha, told you you'd never guess), $2.94 million
2. Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech, $2.3 million
3. Frank Beamer, Va. Tech, $2.04 million
4. Ralph Friedgen, Maryland, $2.04 million
5. Jimbo Fisher, Florida State, $1.8 million

National Championship game
Chip Kelly, Oregon, $2.4 million
Gene Chizik, Auburn, $2.1 million.

Biggest return on this year's investment:
1. Chizik.
2. Dan Mullen, Miss. State, $1.2 million
3. Tom O'Brien, NC State, $632,960 (No need to send donations -- his other compensation brings the total up to $1.52 million)
4. Gary Patterson, TCU, $1.6 million
5. Chris Ault, Nevada, $443,100.

Least return on this year's investment
1. Mac Brown, Texas, $5.1 million
2. Mark Richt, Georgia, $2.8 million
3. Houston Nutt, Ole Miss, and Rich Rodriguez, Michigan, $2.5 million
4. Urban Meyer, Florida, $4 million
5. Jim Grobe, Wake Forest, $2.9 million.

(Honorable mention: Saban. For his kind of dough, coaches can't blow 24-0 leads, at home, against your biggest rival.)
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