The Mississippi State football program has a brand new head coach and here’s what Jeff Lebby’s first contract in Starkville looks like.
The Jeff Lebby era of Mississippi State football is just beginning and that means we’ve got a chance to look at what some of the important details in his contract look like. Obviously we don’t have a full look at the man’s contract with the Mississippi State Bulldogs, but certain notable details were released.
And that means we can start look at them.
Lebby will be making an average annual base salary of $4.51 million over a span of four years. That’s not a ton in the grand scheme of things when looking around the Southeastern Conference, but it’s certainly more than a generous salary for a first time head coach who has bounced around a bit throughout his career.
And it’s worth noting that happens to be more than what Zach Arnett was making in his first year as a head coach. Given Lebby’s offensive coaching pedigree and the success of his offense at multiple locations, maybe the Bulldogs somehow felt they needed to pay him more.
Or maybe the turmoil the program is currently in and the way that Joe Moorhead and Arnett were both fired pretty quickly led to a bargaining point for Lebby and his agent.
Mississippi State football: Jeff Lebby’s contract details and salary information with MSU Bulldogs
Here’s what Lebby’s first contract is set to be:
— Tanner Marlar (@tanner_marlar) November 28, 2023
In terms of incentives, should Lebby be named SEC coach of the year, he gets $50,000. If he gets national coach of the year recognition, he gets $100,000. For each conference win (in the regular season) starting with the 5th SEC opponent win, Lebby gets $125,000.
He then gets the highest of either $100,000 for appearing in the SEC championship game or $250,000 for winning the SEC championship game.
Beyond that, Lebby gets some solid money for participating in bowl games. He’d be paid $100,000 for getting MSU to Tier 3 bowl games or $150,000 for bowl games like the Texas Bowl, TaxSlayer Bowl, Music City Bowl, and such.
If MSU made the Citrus Bowl, Lebby would get $200,000. And then there’s all sorts of incentive bonuses baked into his contract that have to do with the college football playoffs and the national title game.