Win brings $1.45M contract extension for Boise State's Bryan Harsin

This late in a college football season, coaches' bonuses start stacking up large and fast.

So far, none has stacked up larger than the one attained late Saturday night by Boise State coach Bryan Harsin, whose team recorded its ninth victory of the season — an achievement that triggered an automatic one-year contract extension that will be worth at least $1.45 million.

Meanwhile, Middle Tennessee State's Rick Stockstill took a significant step Saturday toward a one-year contract extension and a $100,000 base salary increase that could be worth more than $820,000 when his team scored a last-minute touchdown for its fifth Conference USA win of the season.

Harsin, a former Boise State assistant, left Arkansas State's head coaching job a little less than a year ago to succeed Chris Petersen, who had departed for Washington.

Petersen's deal with Boise State had a similar automatic-extension provision, although it required eight victories, not including bowl games.

According to Harsin's initial five-year agreement, if the Broncos win at least nine games in a season — including bowl games — one year is added to his deal on terms "no less favorable" to Harsin than those applying to what was the agreement's final year before the extension. The Broncos (9-2, 6-1 in the Mountain West Conference) routed Wyoming 63-14 on Saturday night.

Harsin's basic compensation is currently scheduled to be $1.45 million for the 2018 season. In addition, the contract says that if the school terminates Harsin without cause, the school owes him all of the basic compensation amounts remaining on the contact — plus $200,000 per remaining year — subject to offset from any amounts Harsin gets from another job.

Stockstill moved toward an automatic extension and base salary increase Saturday when a 12-yard touchdown pass on a fourth-down play with 19 seconds to play gave the Blue Raiders a 35-34 win against Florida Atlantic. (The win also made MTSU bowl eligible, and if it appears in a bowl game, Stockstill will get a $60,142 bonus -- an amount equal to one month of his current base salary.)

The win was MTSU's fifth of the season in Conference USA play, which is one of three criteria the team needs to meet for Stockstill to get the extension and raise automatically. He could get the rewards twice during the contract's original term of July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2019, and he's already gotten them once.

The rewards are triggered if:

—The team has at least five conference wins or an overall winning record (MTSU is 6-5 overall this season).

—The team's NCAA Academic Progress Rate figure is at least 940 — 10 points above the minimum four-year average of 930 that the NCAA requires for teams to be eligible for postseason play. (MTSU associate athletics director Zackie Sanderson said in an e-mail last week MTSU's latest APR information is still under review by the NCAA and not yet final. However, the football team's four most recent four-year and single-year APRs have been above 940.)

—There have been "no Level I or Level II NCAA violations and no acts of gross negligence which undermine the football program or the university."

Stockstill received the automatic extension and increase — to a $721,704 base salary — after last season, when the Blue Raiders went 8-5, including a loss in the Armed Forces Bowl.

If MTSU fires Stockstill without cause, he would be owed all of the base salary money remaining on the contract, which would go through June 30, 2021 if Stockstill meets all the requirements for the new extension.