University of Southern California football coach Lincoln Riley was credited with a little more than $11.5 million in total compensation for the 2023 calendar year, the school’s new federal tax returns show.
The document, provided by the university Thursday in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports, also showed that Riley has the benefit of a housing loan that has a balance due of $3.43 million — the same as the original amount.
Just over $10.2 million of Riley’s total compensation was categorized as base compensation; $100,000 as bonus and incentive compensation; and nearly $1.15 million as what the tax form calls “other reportable compensation.”
This provides the first full look at Riley’s pay as USC’s coach, including the loan. The school’s return last year, which covered 2022 calendar-year pay, included amounts connected to the $4.5 million buyout that USC paid to the University of Oklahoma on Riley’s behalf for ending his contract with that school. USC treated that amount as taxable income for Riley, but it also paid those taxes. That resulted in USC reporting Riley with $19.7 million in total compensation, including slightly less than $10 million that was categorized as base compensation.
USC’s new return also showed that in 2023, the school continued paying buyout money to former football coach Clay Helton, who was fired in September 2021. Helton received $4.25 million from USC in 2023, bringing his total payout through the end of that year to a little more than $9.1 million.
Helton became Georgia Southern’s head coach in November 2021. His basic pay from that school for the 2023 season was $752,000.
Riley’s $10.2 million in base compensation for the 2023 calendar year likely would have made him the fourth-highest paid football coach in the nation, according to USA TODAY’s annual pay survey for the 2023 season. However, comparing the pay of private-school coaches to that of public-school coaches is difficult because the contracts of private-school employees are not subject to public-records disclosure requirements.
Under IRS rules, while non-profit organizations — including college and universities — make most financial disclosures on a fiscal-year basis, they are required to report employee compensation figures on a calendar-year basis, including the value of all bonuses and benefits. They must use the calendar year completed during the given fiscal year. USC’s fiscal year covered by the new return ended June 30, 2024, so the 2023 calendar year is used for compensation reporting. A combination of IRS reporting deadlines and the availability of automatic extensions results in a significant time lag in the disclosure of private schools’ pay numbers.
USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen, who left the University of Washington to take the job with the Trojans in August 2023, also benefitted from a housing loan and assistance with the buyout she owed Washington. She was credited with nearly $3.1 million in total compensation from USC in 2023, according to the new return, plus a housing loan, the original amount of which was $3.8 million.
More than $2.1 million of her total compensation was connected to the buyout she owed Washington, which USC treated as taxable compensation. Her reported base compensation of $687,185 for a period starting Aug. 22, 2023, works out to an annualized amount of nearly $1.95 million. Her total for the year also includes a $200,000 bonus.
Cohen’s annualized base amount likely makes her one of the 15 highest-paid athletic directors in the nation, according to contracts and tax records obtained by USA TODAY Sports.
USC’s former men’s basketball coach, Andy Enfield — now at SMU — was credited with nearly $4.7 million for 2023, but the return stated that he forfeited nearly $350,000 of that amount when he left for SMU in April 2024 and became ineligible for retention payments he had been set to receive had he stayed at USC.