Following a season that saw a run to a Pac-12 championship and berth in the first College Football Playoff, Oregon is set to reward head coach Mark Helfrich with a healthy new contract.
Oregon and Helfrich have agreed on a new five-year contract valued at $17.5 million. Helfrich will make $3.15 million in 2015-2016 and will be bumped up to $3.8 million by the end of the contract. Helfrich’s new contract also includes bonus incentives of $500,000 for winning the national championship, $100,000 for meeting certain academic goals and another $150,000 for a Pac-12 championship.
Helfrich would be the third highest-paid coach in the Pac-12. Washington head coach Chris Petersen currently earns $3.6 million per season and Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez made a base salary just under $3 million last year according to the most recent database of coaching salaries from USA Today.
Helfrich replaced Chip Kelly prior to the 2013 season, his first time being a head coach. Though he continued some of the offensive tendencies made popular under Kelly, now with the Philadelphia Eagles, Helfrich proved to be more than capable of running the Oregon football program. In his first two seasons at the helm, Helfrich coached Oregon to a record of 24-4, with a Pac-12 championship victory and a trip to the first College Football Playoff National Championship Game this past season. Helfrich’s quarterback, Marcus Mariota, became the first player in school history to win the Heisman Trophy too.
Times are good for Oregon, and now Helfrich is locked into a very solid contract.