The modern college football coach is a lot like a CEO. Ralph Friedgen, University of Maryland's head football coach is no exception.

Enlarge By Justin Kase Conder for USA TODAY Fresno State coach Pat Hill is an exception as his salary has been cut while other coaches have seen increases. HOW HILL'S PAY WAS RESHAPED HOW HILL'S PAY WAS RESHAPED Football coach Pat Hill works under two contracts with Fresno State, one spelling out terms for coaching and the other for "consulting services" - TV, radio and other media and public relations work. How his old contracts compare with his new deals, which take effect in 2011: The old

(2010 terms) The new terms Term Five years; expires Dec. 31 Three years; expires Dec. 31, 2013 Guaranteed components Base salary $198,000 $258,168 Additional "consulting" guarantee $452,000 $391,832 Added lump-sum payment $200,000 Deferred payment (1) $102,499 Total guaranteed $952,499 $650,000 Bonuses Maximum of $697,197 Maximum of $870,000 (2) 1 - Under an earlier deferred-payment plan, Hill earned payments of $7,000 a month for 20 years starting in 2013 and another $1,000 monthly, also for 20 years, starting in 2014.

2 - All bonuses in new contract are contingent on 925 or better Academic Progress Rate (APR). Sources: Fresno State, reporting by Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY SALARIES KEEP GOING UP SALARIES KEEP GOING UP The number of coaches at the top of college football's pay scale - and the scale itself - keeps growing: 2006 At least $1 million 42 At least $2 million 9 At least $3 million 1 At least $4 million 0 At least $5 million 0 2007 At least $1 million 50 At least $2 million 12 At least $3 million 4 At least $4 million 0 At least $5 million 0 2009 At least $1 million 56 At least $2 million 25 At least $3 million 9 At least $4 million 3 At least $5 million 0 2010 At least $1 million 59 At least $2 million 25 At least $3 million 7 At least $4 million 4 At least $5 million 2 Source: USA TODAY research FRESNO  Pat Hill came cheap when he broke into college football coaching a little more than 3½ decades ago. He worked his first job at a California community college without pay, making ends meet by moonlighting Tuesdays and Thursdays as a pinsetter at a bowling alley and Fridays and Saturdays, when football allowed, as a bouncer. He lived for a while in his Chevy van. "I've never been a monetary guy," he says. The contract that will take him into his 15th season as head coach at Fresno State offers further testament. Hill will take a more than $300,000 cut in guaranteed pay in 2011, an extraordinary concession to a school budget stretched thin by the troubled economy. His guaranteed take of $650,000 remains considerable, but he'll have to cash in heavily on incentives to match, or even approach, his nearly seven-figure earnings in 2010. It's part of a move by Fresno State to a more conservative, performance-based approach to compensation that a few schools across the nation have taken with newly hired coaches. Other schools are eyeing the concept, but the question is how many will follow through and resist the compulsion in big-time college athletics to spend big in search of success. This year, USA TODAY's analysis of coaches' salaries finds, at least 59 head football coaches make $1 million or more annually plus bonuses — just shy of half of the 120 in the NCAA's top-tier bowl subdivision. SALARY DATABASE: See the breakdown of coaches' compensation UNIQUE BONUSES: A list of special provisions in some contracts TRESSEL'S DEAL: Ohio State coach has contract with many facets CLOSED BOOKS: Not all public schools are open about salaries Texas' Mack Brown is a guaranteed $5 million dollar man. Alabama's Nick Saban will hit almost $6 million this season, including a one-time payment of more than $530,000. Oklahoma's Bob Stoops and Florida's Urban Meyer are making more than $4 million. The national average is $1.36 million, up 35% from three years ago but essentially the same as last season's. It's the first time USA TODAY hasn't calculated an increase since beginning its annual study in 2006, a possible reflection of the tough economy and struggles across higher education amid cuts in state appropriations and shrinking endowments. The pause also might be a product of circumstance. Pete Carroll, who was making more than $4.5 million at Southern California, left that school for the NFL's Seattle Seahawks. Other coaching changes at Florida State, Texas Tech and East Carolina came with significant drops in annual salary guarantees. The million-dollar fraternity almost certainly is swelled by private-school coaches such as Notre Dame's Brian Kelly, Stanford's Jim Harbaugh and Carroll's successor at USC, Lane Kiffin. Their compensation doesn't appear on their schools' latest available tax returns, the only means of determining pay at most private institutions. For this year's study, USA TODAY — in partnership with the National Sports Law Institute of Marquette University Law School — obtained contracts or other documents showing compensation for all but 10 of the 120 Football Bowl Subdivision coaches. Hill is pushing the $1 million benchmark at Fresno State this season, making a guaranteed $952,499 while steering the Bulldogs to an 8-4 record and the 11th bowl berth in his tenure. He'll add $46,810 from a personal contract with Nike, camps and other outside sources. A new three-year contract that takes effect in January, however, will lower his guarantee by nearly one-third and give him an opportunity to reclaim some or all of that money, or even more, by beefing up incentives. Since USA TODAY began tracking compensation, it's the first known instance of a school's current coach accepting a new contract with that kind of reduction in annual guarantee. "I didn't do it to be a hero or a martyr. I did it because it was the right thing to do in this situation," Hill says, pointing to layoffs, furloughs and program cuts across the cash-strapped Fresno State campus. The school's projected athletics budget of $24.2 million this year is pared by almost $1.1 million from 2008-09. "If I was someplace else where we were winning at a high level and the money was great, and I took a pay raise because of the work we were doing and the revenue that was coming in," Hill says, "I wouldn't feel bad about that, either." He acknowledges the cushion of a comfortable retirement fund that he built through an incentive provision of his current contract. Fresno athletics director Thomas Boeh is in the process, he says, of structuring all of his coaches' contracts as he has Hill's. The strategy: hold the line on the school's annual salary obligation, then sweeten the pot when it can afford it. If a sport and team are successful, ostensibly driving up ticket sales, donor support and other revenue streams, the coach shares in the spoils through bonuses. San Jose State AD Tom Bowen has taken a similar approach, guaranteeing football coach Mike MacIntyre less each season than retired predecessor Dick Tomey received but more than quintupling the sum of MacIntyre's possible bonuses. Iowa State has done the same in signing its last two football coaches, Gene Chizik (now at Auburn) and Paul Rhoads. It's trying to stay afloat in the upper-tier Big 12 Conference, where Texas spent in excess of $127 million and four other schools dropped more than $70 million on athletics in 2008-09, the latest year for which NCAA filings are available. The Cyclones spent a conference-low $45.7 million. "Forever, we've talked about the market and 'we've got to be competitive' and blah, blah, blah, blah," Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard says. "At some point, I can't worry about what other people are doing, because the market's so ridiculous. It's irrational. I can only control what I can control, which is what we do at Iowa State. "It's my belief that our industry is going to kill the golden goose, and we've got to show some kind of rational restraint." Will Fresno's plan catch on? There is skepticism about the number of schools, particularly in college football's bigger-name, more competitive conferences, that ultimately will follow the lead of Fresno State, San Jose State and Iowa State. Cash-flush Texas? Forget it. Brown, who forged the Longhorns into perennial national championship contenders before a stunning slip to 5-7 this season, pocketed a $2 million retention payment at the beginning of the year. That increased his pay from slightly more than $3 million in 2009 to a near top-of-the-scale $5.1 million in 2010. He'll stay in that stratosphere. Texas' regents decided to scrap the retention incentive and simply bump Brown's pay by $2 million a year — keeping it above $5 million while continuing to guarantee annual $100,000 raises — through the life of a contract that expires at the end of 2016. Much further down the food chain, North Texas just handed new coach Dan McCarney a five-year deal that will start him at $475,000 in base pay in 2011. That's minuscule by Texas' standards and modest by most others'. But it's a notable outlay for the Mean Green, up nearly two-thirds from the $289,000-plus the school paid predecessor Todd Dodge this season. "I hear athletics directors and presidents say, 'By golly, when we go into the marketplace and hire our next football coach, we're not going to get caught up in all this (high-paying) nonsense,' " says Dutch Baughman, who heads the Texas-based 1A Athletic Directors' Association. "But they do not anticipate the pressure they're going to receive from stakeholders ... who could care less whether you can provide the funding or not. They just want the coach they want." Former NCAA executive and major-conference commissioner Chuck Neinas is one of college athletics' pre-eminent consultants, helping scores of schools — including Miami (Fla.) at the moment — with coaching searches and other issues. "Let's face it," he says. "If Institution X wants to attract a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer, they're not going to come for a contract like that. There's a certain value that's attached to somebody who can do that kind of job." Even to a coach who shows promise of doing the job. Joker Phillips and Charlie Strong landed their first head coaching positions this season at Kentucky and Louisville, respectively. Both received higher guarantees than the coaches they replaced. Phillips is getting $1.7 million, Strong $1.6 million. Skip Holtz was running a lower-profile program at East Carolina, moved up to South Florida and the Big East Conference and likewise is out-earning predecessor Jim Leavitt ($1.7 million to Leavitt's $1.6 million). Built-in escalators are common. Saban's guarantee at Alabama has risen $600,000 in three years and will go up another $100,000 in the next two. At Oregon, Chip Kelly's new deal took him from a $1.5 million guarantee to $2.4 million this year and calls for raises totaling $1.6 million the next four years. By winning 12 games or getting the Ducks to the Bowl Championship Series' national title game, Kelly could tack an additional year onto the six-year agreement. He did both and now is on board through late spring 2017. Hill hardly disapproves of the largesse. "I think it's great for our profession," he says from a pleasantly cluttered office overlooking Fresno State's Bulldog Stadium. "There's a lot more work than meets the eye. And if a coaching staff is at a place where they can afford to do that, more power to them." He understands, he says, that he's not. From the 23-member California State system that includes Fresno to the 10 University of California campuses, schools in the state are as stricken by the slow-to-recover economy as any in the USA. Fresno State has seen a budget shortfall of $40 million the last two years, longtime President John Welty says. The university has reduced its faculty headcount by more than 200, eliminated dozens of management and staff positions, limited new admissions and stopped offering some low-enrollment courses. Most faculty and staff, including Bulldogs coaches, were furloughed for 24 days in 2009-10. "Obviously, we're in difficult times," Welty says. "And I think Coach Hill recognized that." 'It's leading by example' Hill, 58, has embraced Fresno and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley since his arrival in 1997. He has been embraced in return, in part for averaging 7½ wins a year and making the Bulldogs consistent bowl qualifiers and in no small part for upgrading the football program's academic credentials. The team grade-point average has risen from 2.21 to 2.87 during his tenure, according to the school, and last year's roster included a school-record 18 academic all-conference selections. He has done most everything but pile up league championships, winning his only one in 1999. Once by far the highest-paid coach in the Western Athletic Conference, Hill is third behind Boise State's Chris Petersen (nearly $1.5 million) and Hawaii's Greg McMackin ($1.1 million). He'll stay third in the WAC but fall 10 to 15 spots nationally, from 61st, when his lower-guarantee contract takes effect Jan. 1. When the subject of a new deal was first raised a couple of years ago, Boeh recalls, "Pat said that having the opportunity to finish at Fresno State was most important to him and the money wasn't as important. That gave us the opportunity to say, 'Here's what we can do, then.' "We wanted to be respectful of what's been achieved, but we also have to be practical about it." Atop his base salary and pay for consulting services — TV, radio, Internet and other public appearances — Hill's current contract provides an annual $200,000 lump-sum payment and an escalating deferred payment that, this year, tops $100,000. Those six-figure extras were taken out of his new deal. His current contract, and several revisions, gave him a nest egg. Hill is due $7,000 a month for 20 years starting in 2013 and another $1,000 monthly, again for 20 years, starting in 2014. That's in addition to his standard CSU system retirement benefits. He won't go hungry. Still, the backward step in guaranteed salary raised eyebrows. "I've never heard of anybody doing this. ... I'm still baffled by it," says Michael Caldwell, an associate professor of music who is chairman of Fresno State's Academic Senate. "But it became clear to me that it was consistent with what I've known of him since I've been on this campus." Says Hill: "It was the perfect storm. I mean, every time you turned around, you were hearing about this cut, that cut, those cuts. I had no problem saying, 'If you want to cut my salary, that's not that big a deal.' " As he nudges others at Fresno State in the direction of more performance-based contracts, Boeh has a powerful sales tool. The school's highest-profile coach bought in. "It's leading by example," Boeh says. It's also a positive reflection on an athletic program that, not long ago, was finding its way into too many unflattering headlines. Basketball was the chief culprit, drawing sanctions twice in a little more than 2½ years for violations of NCAA rules. In 2007 and 2008, the school agreed to $16.7 million in settlements of sex discrimination lawsuits or complaints filed by former coaches and athletic employees. Those messes have been cleaned up — the Bulldogs came off NCAA probation in April — but Boeh saw no upside in throwing more money at his football coach in a time of layoffs, furloughs and universitywide financial distress. "It had the potential to be divisive," he says. He needed Hill to agree. They were able to work out their new terms in a matter of months, Boeh says. "Hey, listen. I'm set for life and a very comfortable living, something that I never even imagined," says Hill, whose three sons with wife Cathy are mostly grown. The youngest, Zak, plays for him as a junior free safety at Fresno. "I'm not saying this is something everybody should do. Everybody's situation is different. Everybody's his own man," Hill says. "To me, it was a no-brainer." Contributing: Rachel Leven Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more