Nebraska football’s Matt Rhule and Colorado’s Deion Sanders have been linked since both men took the helms of their respective colleges. It’s not hard to understand why, considering they were hired in the same year, there were even some rumors that Sander was interested in the NU job. And of course, they’ve gone head-to-head twice.
On Friday, Sanders was the beneficiary of what was an unimitaged success for the Buffaloes in the 2024 season. Via Brian Howell of the Boulder Daily Camera, CU has announced a new five-year, $54 million deal for Sanders. The $10.8 million-per-year agreement makes Coach Prime one of the highest-paid coaches in college football.
It makes Deion Sanders higher paid than Nebraska football’s head coach. At least for now. Rhule has an escalating salary that will eventually see him make about $12.5 million before bonuses, but for now he’s quite a bit lower than Sanders.
Nebraska football rival coach gets a big payday
For those who think that Deion might have signed this deal with the intention of sticking around long term, that may not be the case. His buyout language actually makes it pretty easy for an NFL team that might be interested in Prime in a short period of time.
The buyout language looks like this: $12 million before December 31, of this year; $10 million before December 31, 2026, $6 million before December 31, 2027, $4 million before December 31, 2028, and $3 million before December 31, 2029.
The Nebraska football rival’s coach had reportedly talked to several NFL teams this offseason but was eventually not hired by any of them.