In 1997, Steve Spurrier became the first $2 million head coach in college football.
A little more than 20 years later, LSU gave defensive coordinator Dave Aranda a four-year deal worth $2.5 million annually.
In Spurrier’s day, a $1 million dollar head coaching salary was a king’s ransom. Now it is becoming the cost of business to hire a top coordinator in the SEC.
Alabama pays both of its coordinators more than $1 million each.
“It’s what the market bears,” Crimson Tide athletic director Greg Byrne said Wednesday at the SEC Spring Meetings.