LSU head football coach Lane Kiffin called for a “rookie cap” for incoming freshman college football players during his Thursday podium appearance at the 2026 SEC Football Kickoff Media Days event in Tampa. It was eyebrow-raising suggestion, especially from one of the sports’ highest-paid coaches.
A day later, TCU athletic director Mike Buddie agreed college athletics should implement salary caps, but not specifically for student-athletes. Instead, Buddie told Front Office Sports that head coaches and athletic directors should have their ballooning salaries capped.
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“I think athletic directors should make a capped salary, I think coaches should make a capped salary,” Buddie said during a 19-minute interview with Front Office Sports’ Amanda Christovich. “And I think student-athletes should be in the room helping make these decisions.”
Of course, any such “salary cap” would require some sort of collective bargaining agreement in college sports, which has been seen as a redline for many NCAA, conference and school administrators.
The 51-year-old Kiffin signed to a seven-year, $91 million contract to become LSU‘s head football coach on Dec. 1, a deal that will pay him around $13 million annually. It ties him with Georgia‘s Kirby Smart as the sport’s second-highest paid head coach behind only Indiana‘s Curt Cignetti ($13.02m).
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Cignetti, who won the 2025 College Football Playoff national championship last season, signed an eight-year extension in October that included a provision that guaranteed the university would review his salary and make him a Top-3 highest-paid head football coach any time the Hoosiers made the CFP semifinals.
Meanwhile, TCU head coach Sonny Dykes will make more than $7 million annually in 2026 after agreeing to a multiyear contract extension in April. Buddie’s salary isn’t public since TCU is a private university.
And while most athletic directors — even among the Power Four ranks — don’t make nearly as much as head football coaches, many earn salaries in excess of $1 million annually. Tennessee AD Danny White is believed to be the highest-paid AD at a public university with a $2.75 million base salary, according to a July 2025 story by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
“I think we’re blessed to be in this industry that we’re in. I think we’ve taken it for granted,” Buddie added. “I think when there were millions of dollars at stake, the commissioners would get together and talk through issues and leave united. … And now (that) there’s billions of dollars at stake, frankly the commissioners aren’t incentivized to get together and reach a consensus. They’re incentivized to fight their butts off for their league. And they’re really good at doing that.”
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Buddie’s cap comments came during a broader discussion about the skyrocketing prices across college athletics, including the rising cost of football and men’s basketball rosters due to loopholes with team-affiliated businesses and third-party NIL deals. The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act currently working its way through the Senate includes language that could establish a hard salary cap. Of course, that language has received intense pushback from antitrust lawyers and student-athlete representatives.
