Jonathan Smith contract: Where Michigan State football's coach ranks nationally, Big Ten

Michigan State football coach Jonathan Smith is the 22nd-highest paid coach in college football in 2024, according to the newly updated USA TODAY Sports coaching salary database.

Smith is in Year 1 of a rebuild at Michigan State after signing on with the Spartans mere hours after the 2023 season ended , leaving his alma mater Oregon State after six seasons.

The Spartans paid handsomely to bring Smith to East Lansing from Corvallis after the Mel Tucker era ended disastrously , with MSU finishing 4-8 in 2023 in a season where distractions were constant.

Although the Spartans are paying Smith significantly less than they were Tucker, who was in the second year of a 10-year, $95 million contract before MSU suspended and eventually fired him for allegedly sexually harassing rape survivor and college football sexual assault advocate Brenda Tracy , the former Oregon State quarterback is still paid well.

Smith is taking home $7.25 million per season as part of a seven-year, $52.85 million contract, according to the USA TODAY Sports database, which makes him the seventh-highest paid coach in the Big Ten and 22nd in the nation, not counting private schools, which are not required to disclose what they pay their coaches.

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The six Big Ten coaches who make more than Smith: USC's Lincoln Riley ($10.04 million), Ohio State's Ryan Day ($10.02 million), Penn State's James Franklin ($8.5 million), Oregon's Dan Lanning ($8.2 million), Wisconsin's Luke Fickell ($7.73 million) and Washington's Jedd Fisch ($7.7 million).

Notably not on that list is Michigan's Sherrone Moore, who is in his first year at the helm for the Wolverines after taking over for Jim Harbaugh, who used to perennially be near the top of the coaching salary list before taking a pay cut after the 2020 season.

Moore is slated to make $6 million this year with the Wolverines, a deal that wasn't finalized until after the 2024 season was underway.

While the average annual value of Smith's contract doesn't put him in the top 20 nationally, his buyout is 13th highest in the country, which makes sense since buyouts typically go down in value over the time of the contract and Smith is in his first year.

If MSU were to move on from Smith, the school would owe him $39,787,083 in total.

Year 1 under Smith has been a bit of a mixed bag through the first six games. After a max exodus following the staff turnover in East Lansing, there are 61 new players on the 2024 Michigan State team.

Despite that, the Spartans got off to a 3-0 start this year with a win against Maryland on the road to open Big Ten play. The Spartans lost a game on the road to Boston College and then were blown out by two top-five opponents in back-to-back weeks, in Ohio State and Oregon.

Michigan State has a chance to get back above .500 when it hosts Iowa at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jonathan Smith contract: Where Michigan State football's coach ranks nationally, Big Ten