Kansas Athletics Releases Gill's Contract, Retention Agreement
Jan. 27, 2010
LAWRENCE, Kan. –
Gill Employment Agreement 
Gill Retention Agreement
Kansas Athletics has announced that new KU football coach Turner Gill has signed a contract that will pay him $2 million per year for the next five years. According to the latest survey information available to Kansas Athletics, upon his hiring at KU Gill’s compensation package ranked fifth among head football coaches in the Big 12 Conference.
Gill will earn an annual base salary of $229,900 in addition to an annual media payment of $1,770,100. Kansas Athletics will also pay Gill a retention payment of $100,000 per year, payable only if he remains for the entire five-year term.
In addition, Gill is eligible for incentive payments that could total as much as $400,000 in any one year. Those payments are as follows:
Big 12 Regular-Season Championship: $25,000
Bowl Game Participation: One month’s salary
BCS Bowl Game Participation: $50,000
National Coach of the Year: $100,000
KU wins BCS National Championship: $200,000
“Turner Gill is a winner,” Perkins said. “He is an excellent coach and a terrific person. With Turner and the outstanding staff he has assembled, Kansas fans can look forward to many exciting Saturdays at Kivisto Field at Memorial Stadium.”
Gill, who took over the reins of the KU football program last month, had been the head coach at Buffalo for the previous four seasons. There he took over a program that had won more than two games just once in the previous seven seasons and guided it to a share of the MAC Eastern Division title in his second year (2007). The following season he led them to a league championship and the school’s first bowl appearance.
He earned MAC Coach of the Year honors in both 2007 and 2008, and was a finalist for the Bear Bryant National Coach of the Year award in 2008.
Gill handled the play-calling during Buffalo’s record-setting 2007 season, when the Bulls set school records in points (424), and his players set school single-season individual marks in passing yards, rushing yards and receiving yards.
In his four-year tenure 17 Buffalo players earned All-MAC honors after having just six in the program’s first eight years of conference play.
As an assistant coach at Nebraska from 1992-2004, Gill was part of three national championship teams (1994, 95 and 97). He coached 2001 Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch and First-Team All-American Tommie Frazier.
He was named a finalist for the Frank Broyles Award, given annually to the nation’s top assistant coach, in 2002. ESPN.com named Gill one of the nation’s top-10 recruiters in 2000 and 2001.
As the starting quarterback at Nebraska from 1981-83, he led the Cornhuskers to a 28-2 record and a 20-0 mark in Big Eight Conference play, three straight Big Eight Conference championships and three consecutive Orange Bowls.
Gill was a Heisman Trophy finalist in 1983 when teammate Mike Rozier claimed the honor. He was a three-time All-Big Eight selection and was named the quarterback of the Big Eight Conference All-Decade Team (1980-89). He has been inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame and the Orange Bowl Hall of Fame. He also spent three seasons in the minor league systems of the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians.
Gill started his coaching career as the wide receivers coach at SMU in 1991.
