A recently filed public disclosure reveals how much two now-former Penn State football assistant coaches made during the Nittany Lions’ College Football Championship run in 2024-25, along with the university’s other top earners for the year.
Penn State is required by the state’s Right to Know Law to publish annually total compensation for officers and key employees, its other highest salaries and information that would appear on its exempt nonprofit return to the IRS. The newest filing, which was released on May 30, is for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024 and ending June 30, 2025.
Unsurprisingly, then-head football coach James Franklin was the university’s top-paid employee in his last full year at Penn State with a total compensation of $8,569,841 — including a $500,000 base salary, $7.3 million in incentives and bonuses and $769,841 in other compensation and benefits.
Franklin, who was fired midway through the 2026 season and received a multi-million dollar buyout, will likely again be at the top of 2025-26 list when it is released next spring. New head football coach Matt Campbell, who was hired in December with guaranteed compensation of $8 million in his first year, will also be included in that filing for his first seven months on the job.
Former Penn State Health CEO Stephen Massini, who retired in October 2024, was No. 2 with $3.6 million, including a $1.78 million base salary.
Men’s basketball coach Mike Rhoades was the university’s third-highest earner in his second year at the helm of the program with $3,546,564 in total compensation ($500,000 salary, $2.95 million bonuses/incentives, $46,564 other compensation). Rhoades had been No. 2 on the list a year earlier with $4.2 million in total pay for his first season in State College.
In his second year with the program, Nittany Lion football offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki was the university’s fourth-highest paid employee with just over $3 million in total compensation in 2024-25. That included a $1,642,806 base salary, $1,279,167 in bonuses and incentives and $92,099 in other compensation and benefits.
Kotelnicki was not retained after the 2026 season, his third at Penn State, and has since returned to Kansas, where he coached from 2021 to 2023, as associate head coach.
Athletic Director Patrick Kraft was the fifth-highest paid employee for the second straight year with $1.8 million ($1.1 million salary, $617,500 in bonuses and incentives and $93,322 in other compensation and benefits).
For his lone year with program, defensive coordinator Tom Allen was Penn State’s sixth-highest earner with $1.632 million in total compensation, including a $414,286 salary, $1,142,308 in bonuses and incentives and $75,482 in other compensation and benefits. Allen left Penn State for the same job at Clemson following the 2025 seasn.
President Neeli Bendapudi came in seventh on the list with $1.629 million ($950,000 salary and $679,217 in other compensation and benefits). In September 2025, after the conclusion of the fiscal year covered in the report, the Board of Trustees approved an increase of about $1 million for Bendapudi’s total annual compensation.
Deborah Addo, who served as interim CEO of Penn State Health following Massini’s retirement, was eighth with $1.586 million in total compensation, including a $956,748 base salary.
Absent from the most recent filing is wrestling coach Cael Sanderson, who was seventh on the list last year with a total compensation of $964,455. That doesn’t mean, however, that Penn State’s most successful head coach is earning any less.
Penn State is required to report the total compensation of its officers and directors, as well as its five highest paid other employees. Kotelnicki’s and Allen’s deals appear to have bumped Sanderson out of that latter group.
The university also reports its 200 highest salaries, not including additional compensation. In the 2023-24 filing, Sanderson earned $649,27 from incentives and bonuses and had a base salary $315,177, which does not make the cutoff for the university’s 200 highest salaries.
Penn State Health physicians and executives, as usual, dominated the salaries-only list, including 98 of the top 100. Neurosurgery chair Kevin Cockroft topped all salaries at $1,199,806. Physicians John Kelleher, Jesse Bible and John Myers, along with former CEO Massini, each had salaries over $1 million.
Kraft was the only non-Penn State Health employee with a base salary over $1 million. Chief Investment Officer Joseph Cullen was the only other non-Penn State Health employee in the top 100 salaries, coming in 96th with $559,746.
