Buckeyes make Urban Meyer Big Ten's highest-paid coach

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Urban Meyer has a national championship win and a 38-3 record in three seasons as the Ohio State head football coach.

Monday, the school rewarded that success with a reworked contract that makes Meyer the highest-paid coach in the Big Ten and keeps him on the job through 2020.

"Urban Meyer has done an excellent job strengthening our culture of commitment to academics, career development and winning championships," Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith said in the school's announcement. "Our young men continue to thrive under his leadership, whether on the playing field where they are national champions, through life skills pursuits like Real Life Wednesdays, internships and job fairs, and academically through program-wide efforts to monitor the progress of every student-athlete which has helped the team achieve its highest graduation success rate at 78 percent."

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Meyer's old contract paid him $4.9 million a year and ran through the 2017 season. Now Meyer has three more years tacked on and will average $6.5 million over the next six years.

"I am honored to serve as football coach at The Ohio State University and to represent this great university," Meyer said in the announcement. "It is a privilege to coach and mentor the young men in this program, and I want to thank President (Michael) Drake and Mr. Smith for their support and their trust in me."

Meyer's national championship win in January was his third and the program's eighth. In addition to that remarkable 38-3 overall record, he's won every Big Ten regular-season game he's coached in, with just one defeat coming in the 2013 Big Ten Championship Game against Michigan State.

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This past season, Meyer was universally praised for a sensational coaching job in the face of the loss of star running back Carlos Hyde and not one but two season-ending injuries to Heisman-candidate quarterbacks in Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett. But the Buckeyes won the Big Ten title and defeated SEC champion Alabama and Pac-12 champion Oregon en route to the first-ever College Football Playoff championship, with stars emerging in quarterback Cardale Jones and running back Ezekiel Elliott.

The new contract appears to make Meyer the second highest-paid coach in college football, trailing only Alabama's Nick Saban. Meyer was previously the sixth highest-paid head coach and ranked second in the Big Ten only to Michigan State's Mark Dantonio. New Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh could wind up making more in 2015 when you combine his $5 million salary and $2 million signing bonus.

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