The first time Sean Lewis was hired as a head coach, he was driving a nine-year-old Ford Escape. It must have been something of a sight given his 6-foot-7 frame.
“My wife said, ‘You’re a big-time ball coach now, you think you can get a new vehicle?’ “Lewis said. “I was like, ‘We haven’t done anything yet.’ “
That was 2018, when Lewis was hired as Kent State’s head football coach. He has done a few things since then; Wednesday, the 37-year-old Lewis was named as San Diego State’s new head coach, replacing Brady Hoke.
The position comes with a significant raise over the $850,000 a year Lewis made this season as Colorado’s offensive coordinator.
Lewis’ five-year contract at SDSU will pay him $1,753,100 in 2024, with $100,000 annual increases in future, according to a memorandum of understanding obtained from the university by the Union-Tribune. It was signed by Lewis, SDSU athletic director John David Wicker and Agnes Wong Nickerson, SDSU’s vice president for business and financial affairs.
Per the document, Lewis will make $353,100 in base pay plus $1,400,000 in “supplemental compensation” in his first year. The total is nearly $500,000 more than what SDSU paid Hoke this season and ranks fourth among Mountain West head coaches behind Wyoming’s Craig Bohl ($2,337,000), San Jose State’s Brent Brennan ($2,300,000) and UNLV’s Barry Odom ($1,785,000), according to figures compiled by USA Today.
The Aztecs’ new coach can also collect more than a dozen performance-based bonuses, ranging from $10,000 for a victory over a Power Five school and $25,000 for being named National Coach of the Year to $150,000 for making the College Football Playoff. A national championship would earn Lewis a $400,000 bonus.
Lewis will have a staff salary pool of $3,732,000 from which to pay his 10 assistant coaches as well as recruiting staffers, offensive and defensive analysts, strength and conditioning coaches and graduate assistants.
The contract term runs through Jan. 31, 2029.
If Lewis is fired without cause before then, he will be paid a percentage of his remaining contract — 75 percent if he is fired before Jan, 31, 2026; 85 percent if he’s fired between Feb. 1, 2026 and Jan. 31, 2027; and 100 percent if he’s fired on or after Feb. 1, 2027.
Similarly, Lewis must pay SDSU if he departs before his contract is up. The buyout provision calls for Lewis to pay $5 million if he leaves before Jan. 31, 2025; $3 million if he leaves before Jan. 31, 2026; and $2 million thereafter.
The memorandum of understanding also includes a clause that allows for “good faith renegotiation” in the event of conference realignment, “to the extent warranted by market conditions in such realigned conference.” San Diego State was a candidate to join the Pac-12 this summer before an exodus left the Power 5 conference with just two members remaining: Oregon State and Washington State.
