In December 2022, Cincinnati announced the appointment of their replacement for long-time head coach Luke Fickell to much fanfare from the program. The Bearcats secured Satterfield as the 43rd head coach in school history, with a six-year contract that aims to keep him at the program through the 2028 college football season.
In 2023, Satterfield will earn a salary of $3.5 million. Like many college football head coach contracts, the new head of the Cincinnati coaching staff has his total salary broken down into base salary and supplemental compensation.
Satterfield’s base salary remains at $250,000 for the life of his contract, while his supplemental income starts at $3.25 million for the 2023 campaign. Each season, he receives an incremental increase of $100,000 to his supplemental income.
These increases mean that Satterfield’s salary will be $4 million in the final year of his current contract. Although his salary falls short of the amount paid to his predecessor, it’s an increase of approximately $250,000 from his salary at Louisville. The new Cardinals head coach had two years on that contract and had reportedly been denied a contract extension.
Satterfield arrives in Cincinnati having seen success at Appalachian State and Louisville, where he tallied a 76-48 record in 10 years across the two programs. Meanwhile, he holds a 4-1 bowl game record, and his coaching résumé contains three conference titles from his time in Boone with the Mountaineers.
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Furthermore, Satterfield was named conference coach of the year in consecutive seasons from 2018 to 2019. In 2018, he won the Sun Belt Coach of the Year with Appalachian State before flipping the Cardinals from a 2-10 team to an 8-5 record as the ACC Coach of the Year in 2019.
Understandably, Cincinnati athletic director John Cunningham was excited to announce Satterfield as the new Bearcats head coach.
“Scott Satterfield is a proven winner, a relentless competitor and a culture builder,” Cunningham enthused in the official announcement of the hire. “He’s an innovative offensive mind and a leader who develops men on and off the field. He’s the perfect fit to grow this program and lead us into the Big 12 next season and beyond.”
If Satterfield brings significant success to Cincinnati at the Power Five level, he might find himself a hot property in the college football head coach market. However, the buyout structure of his contract means that he’d be an expensive choice in the next two seasons.
If Satterfield wants to terminate his contract at any point before December 31, 2024, he—or his potential new employer—would have to pay Cincinnati $8 million. That number halves in the following year, eventually dwindling down to $1 million in the final year of his current contract.
