Auburn and football coach Gus Malzahn came to terms on a contract extension through the 2020 season.

The school released an updated amendment to Malzahn's contract, which was previously amended on the eve of the 2013 SEC Championship game and signed in March 2014, on Monday.

Under the terms of the new agreement, which was signed on April 1, Malzahn will make $4.725 million per year through Dec. 31, 2020.

His previous deal was through Dec. 31, 2019 and had Malzahn earning $4.35 million in 2016, with an increase of $250,000 per year. In 2016 and 2017, Malzahn will earn a combined $500,000 more than he would have under his previous amended contract, but he will earn a combined $500,000 less in 2018 and 2019, making the only difference on paper the additional year in 2020.

Already among the top-paid college football coaches, Malzahn will likely rank in the top 10 nationally and trail only Alabama's Nick Saban and Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin in the SEC, according to USA TODAY's coaching salaries database.

During last week's SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Florida, Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs said Malzahn would be the Tigers coach for a "long, long time" and said he was the "the right guy for Auburn" moving forward.

"He's a brilliant offensive mind," Jacobs said last week. "Took us to two national championships; once as a coordinator, once as a head coach. There's a bunch of schools in this league that would love to be in our position with a guy like him.

"It's tough league, this league is tough every day. It doesn't matter what year it is, year in, year out, how many years you've been here, whatever it may be, but there's no doubt about that he is the right guy for Auburn."

Terms of Malzahn's buyout, both if he were to leave Auburn or if Auburn were to part ways with him, have not changed, with the exception of the additional year of money he would be owed if Auburn were to terminate the deal.

Malzahn would be owed $2,237,500 per year remaining on his contract if Auburn were to part ways with him.

If Malzahn were to leave Auburn before the end of 2020, he would owe Auburn the total of any outstanding payments owed to his assistants who either don't follow him to a new employer or are not retained by the new coaching staff.

Since leading Auburn to the 2013 SEC Championship and to within 13 seconds of the BCS National Championship, Malzahn has had back-to-back disappointing seasons, going 8-5 in 2014 and 7-6 in 2015, and has lost five straight SEC home games, last winning against South Carolina on Oct. 25, 2014.

Auburn suffered an offensive identity crisis and finished in the bottom four of the SEC in nearly every major defensive statistic last season.

Malzahn had to hire five new members of his coaching staff, including Kevin Steele to be the third defensive coordinator during his four-year tenure and the team's fifth in six years. The other four new assistant coaches are on two-year contracts that, combined with Steele's three-year, $3.6 million contract, total $975,000 less than what their predecessors would have been owed in 2016.

"We feel very good about our staff," Malzahn said last month, "and we feel very good about the future."

Auburn opens the 2016 season against reigning ACC Champion and national runner-up Clemson at 8 p.m. CT (ESPN) on Sept. 3 at Jordan-Hare Stadium.