Brady Hoke, Oregon's new defensive coordinator, has signed a three-year contract worth a guaranteed $1.8 million.

Hoke, a head coach for the past 12 seasons of his career at Ball State, San Diego State and Michigan before spending this past season away from coaching, will earn $400,000 in 2016 in his first year as a coordinator at the college level before receiving $700,000 in both 2017 and 2018.

Hoke's eventual $700,000 salary will be the highest salary ever paid to an Oregon defensive coordinator, and is in range of the $755,000 earned by former offensive coordinator Scott Frost in 2015 before he left in December to become Central Florida's head coach. Frost was one of 29 college football assistants to earn more than $700,000 last season.

As Oregon's contracts currently stand Don Pellum, the man Hoke is replacing as coordinator, will be the highest-paid UO defensive staffer next season.

Pellum has been reassigned to coach linebackers and is set to earn $410,000 this year. That same salary made him the 44th highest-paid defensive coordinator in the Football Bowl Subdivision last season, according to USA Today's database of assistant coaching contracts. Like all other full-time UO assistants who were on staff last season, Pellum has two years left on a three-year deal.

"DP has handled this incredibly well and is a guy, as I said before, (who) is part of the solution," Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said Saturday in announcing Hoke's hiring. "His contribution to this point and beyond this point to Oregon football has been huge and tremendous and positive and that will continue in a slightly different role."

The new or amended deals for new quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator David Yost, who was hired from Washington State, and offensive coordinator Matt Lubick, who was promoted from receivers coach, are not yet available.

Hoke's contract includes several standard fringe benefits for UO coaches, such as use of a courtesy car provided by the university, tickets to home games for all UO sports, a Nike allowance and fees to cover outings at Eugene's River Ridge Golf Course "for fundraising purposes."

Likewise, his football incentives are standard among assistants and start at earning one month of his base salary for playing in, and winning, the Pac-12 Conference's lowest bowl game. It goes up to earning four months of base salary for winning the College Football Playoff national championship. Academic incentives top out at $50,000.

Hoke and Yost already have begun recruiting for the Ducks, with Hoke saying in a SiriusXM radio interview that he was flying Tuesday to Washington D.C. to begin recruiting athletes for his new 4-3 base defense, which will replace the 3-4 base that UO has used since 2009.

Oregon allowed a school-record 37.5 points per game in 2015.

"I think (Hoke) wants to get back to not being a head coach and solely focusing on his expertise, which in the past has been defense," Helfrich said. "He's been an excellent head coach, he's been an excellent defensive coach for a long, long time."

Renowned for his defensive line coaching and recruiting, Hoke was fired from his last job as Michigan head coach in December 2014 and earned a $3 million buyout because of it. Including the buyout, Hoke earned $14.4 million in four seasons in Ann Arbor.

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif