It’s raise day, and that means we’re walking into the second-half of Chris Creighton’s current working contract.

Creighton, who was first hired by Eastern Michigan back in December 2013, has built up a record of some sustainability during his 12 seasons as an FBS-level coach. EMU’s a much better program today than when he found it, there’s certainly no denying that.

But there’s also no denying that he hasn’t been able to catch the big fish either as EMU’s coach.

No big kahuna. No MAC championship trophy in the display case.

There still hasn’t been even an appearance by EMU in the MAC championship game, which first began being played in 1997 and has been at Ford Field in Detroit since 2004.

Creighton was hired to be EMU’s 37th head coach in the program’s history, and overall it’s hard to say that the hire of Creighton hasn’t been a successful one. EMU went from zero bowl games since 1987 to six since 2016. As Eastern’s coach, Creighton has posted a 61-83 overall record — including his 200th all-time career coaching win — and has gone 36-58 in MAC play.

Not the most impressive marks in the world (like I said: no league title), but impressive for a program that hasn’t seen lot of great years of football to begin with.

Creighton’s teams saw just three wins in his first two seasons, then the 2016 unit profoundly changed the trajectory of the coach’s tenure, let alone the program’s profile. In 2016, EMU beat a Josh Allen-led Wyoming for the second year in a row (this time at home), went 4-4 in MAC play for the first time since 2011 (second since 2004), and, despite losing in the Bahamas Bowl to Old Dominion, EMU clearly showed that it was a passionate team, and far from being the laughingstock program of the country like it had been during the English years. During the Jeff Genyk years. Jeff Woodruff years.

With the program’s newfound sense of belief, the school clung onto Creighton’s leadership with an extension before his fourth season with the team in 2017, and (not including the 2020 Covid-year amendment) has reworked his contract two more times since then: in 2021 and 2023.

In those years, Creighton’s success has, to this point, peaked in 2022 when EMU went 8-4 through the regular season, and then won its first bowl game in 35 years.

I’ve obtained copies of Creighton’s contracts (and amendments made) throughout his tenure at Eastern Michigan via Freedom of Information Act requests, and this post will show you some of the details of what’s in those deals.

In the most-recent deal that was signed in 2023, Creighton’s base salary was set at $400,000 for that season, then from every July 1 from 2024 through 2027, it’d go up by $5,000. He’s also currently contracted to receive over $200,000 every year in supplemental pay (for the non-football stuff), but he’s also allowed to forego up to $50,000 per year and have that money go to other coaches or staff members instead.

According to USA Today, Creighton’s pay last year was at the top of the bottom-half of the MAC, and 116th richest publicly-available coaching salary in FBS.

(As a sidebar: The USA Today report did not include information for Ohio’s head coach. Brian Smith as hired to be the new head coach in December 2024, but that experience lasted just one year. Last December, he was fired for “serious professional misconduct,” and Smith has since sued Ohio for wrongful termination.)

Since extended deal was finalized, Eastern Michigan has gone 18-22, including a 59-10 bowl loss to South Alabama, which was memorable for all the wrong reasons on the EMU side.

Today is the beginning of the penultimate year of Creighton’s most-recently signed contract with EMU, and if 2026 doesn’t turn out to be a winning run, how much more trust is the coach going to be afforded?

Why should you know this? It’s important for you, the reader, to know what people in Creighton’s position get paid. Since this sort of information, the salaries and contract details of certain public employees, can be found with some Freedom of Information Act requests, I believe you’re entitled to have the chance to know how much money flows into any one person’s direction.

Signed in December 2013, Creighton agreed to a $400,000 per-year job that’d take him through the 2018 season. Creighton’s incentive bonus structure at the time could’ve gotten over $200,000, but that would’ve required EMU to reach the 4-team college football playoff, which obviously didn’t happen. But incremental bonuses for having 7, 8, 9 or more wins? Bonus for just for going to a bowl game? A bonus for getting people to show up to games?

Additionally, a supplemental $25,000 to take part in a weekly radio segment during the season (and maybe a couple of times in the winter or spring).

Of course, most of the bonuses don’t actually matter if EMU was still stuck in a ditch. And for two years, things were still pretty messy. Then 2016’s 7-6 season was such a success that it ultimately changed the outlook of, not just Creighton’s future at Eastern Michigan, but the football team’s national profile.

Maybe not dramatic changes, but noticeable differences.

During his fourth year, Creighton and EMU agreed to keep him in Ypsilanti through 2022 on a new, 6-year deal. While each contract year continues to run from January 1 through December 31, this deal, which was signed June 27, 2017, includes incremental pay increases to Creighton’s base pay each July 1: $425,000 on July 1, 2017, $435,000 in 2018, $445,000 in 2019, $455,000 in 2020, $465,000 in 2021, and $475,000 in 2022.

The incentives structure for Creighton grew from a maximum potential of $210,000 to $250,000, but there are plenty of provisions in his 2017 contract that also says if Creighton gets a bonus, then so do his assistants.

For example, the bonus for winning the MAC West division title, under provision 3.1.6.3, would pay Creighton $20,000 (up from the $10,000 bonus agreed to in 2013), and the contract states that “there will be an additional $10,000 compensation pool to be divided among assistant coaches.”

Assistants also see bonuses reach their shared compensation pool for: the team reaching a bowl game (but not for a bowl win), for reaching the College Football Playoff (but not for winning a Playoff game), and for winning at least seven games in a year.

The Covid-19 pandemic meant a salary decrease for Creighton in 2020. Agreed in May of that year, the head coach would see a 7% pay decrease to his salary. His new salary for the 2019-2020 fiscal year would drop from $445,000 to $413,850, and once his July 1 raise would be set to hit, it was to be a base pay of $423,150 through the calendar year. Then on January 1, EMU and Creighton agreed that his base salary would be back to the already agreed-upon figure of $455,000.

On this day five years ago — July 1, 2021 — a new contract was made. It would be a five-year deal to take him through the 2025 season, but there was a new provision about automatically granting Creighton an extended year to his contract if the team either reaches a bowl game or wins a conference championship (and two years if EMU goes to the playoff).

As for his pay, Creighton’s base pay for 2021 would be $480,000, which, again, went up in increments of $10,000 each year: $490,000 as of July 1, 2022, $500,000 in 2023, $510,000 in 2024, and $520,000 in 2025.

In the event EMU were to reach the playoff, Creighton’s base salary would see an automatic increase of $100,000 on top of his automatic two-year extension.

Creighton’s bonus for doing a weekly radio show thought out the season, and a handful of times during the spring, went up from $25,000 to $35,000.

The Staff Pool is established in this contract, too; $1,213,000 was assigned to be divvied up amongst the 10 assistant head coaches, head strength coach, associate athletic director, and director of recruiting operations. As added incentives, the pool would see…

The aforementioned assistants and staff members also had base pay raises in place through Creighton’s contracts for, essentially, the same set of circumstances.

Creighton’s updated contract also had a retention bonus provision, which goes the university pays him an extra $25,000 no later than February 1 of each contract year; up to $10,000 of that can be funneled into the staff pool. The retention bonus was also able to see an increase of $10,000 for a bowl appearance, $20,000 for a bowl win, and $50,000 for a MAC championship win (only one increased bonus per year).

Creighton’s new incentives structure had the maximum potential of $360,000 — though, that number’s slightly dependent on how many Power 5 opponents EMU could see in a given year. There was a new bonus in this agreement that’d pay Creighton an extra $15,000 for beating a Power 5 team, and an extra $25,000 to throw into the staff pool.

My favorite bonus to see ballon-up was for grades.

When Creighton first signed in 2013, his contract sought a bonus of $5,000 if his team recorded an academic progress report of 950 or better, and $5,000 for a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. In 2017, an APR of 965 or better would instead net $10,000 (or $5,000 if APR score of 950-964), and a team GPA of 3.0 was also worth $10,000 (or $5,000 if GPA above 2.75).

Now, a single-year APR score of 950 would be worth $20,000 for the coaches and staff to split up. But if the team reported a multi-year APR of 965, then there the grouped bonus would be $30,000.

A team GPA of 2.75-2.99 for a single academic year would provide the pool with $20,000, and a 3.0 average would be worth $30,000 to the group.

After the team’s best season in the Creighton era, the two parties re-worked their agreement to really change-up the way the coach (and his staff) would be paid.

Now, Creighton’s base pay would go down to what he was originally being paid — $400,000 in the first year of the contract — and then he’d have his additional, supplemental pay that would hit his bank account four times a year. His base pay raise would only be $5,000 each passing year, down from the $10,000-per-year jump in his previous agreement.

The supplemental income, which is paid out in four installments most years (beginning of each financial quarter), started out at $240,000 in the first contract year, then $250,000 in the second year, and so on. Creighton’s supplemental pay is for all of the additional, non-football related tasks (weekly radio show, media, fundraising, other public-facing appearances).

The quarterly supplemental checks would be where his football-related football bonuses would be found, too. For instance, his bonus for reaching a bowl game ($10,000), a bowl victory ($20,000), or a MAC championship ($50,000), was also re-figured to fit this new structure, and he reached one of those bench marks so far with the 68 Ventures Bowl berth in 2023.

Today, Creighton’s base pay rose to $415,000, and his quarterly supplemental pay rose to $70,000 ($280,000 for the year).

The staff pool’s total rose to $1,365,000 to fit 10 assistant coaches and four support staff members (instead of three). The only change in the staff pool’s incentive increases comes down to whether or not EMU can win a “MAC Division Championship” shared (1%) or outright (2%).

Since the team reached the bowl game in 2023, the pool saw a 2% increase to $1,392,300

New staff incentives helped include three training staff members (one head, two assistants) on top of the 14 paid out through the staff pool.

A pair of retention bonuses were added for Creighton to earn. One was in March of 2024, for being the fourth head coach to stay at EMU for at least 10 years (check: $50,000), and the next is set for 2028. Should Creighton still be with EMU by November 1, 2028, he’ll receive another $50,000 for being the second head coach to lead the team for, by then, 15 years.

What about buyout structures?

I didn’t spell out all of the buyout structure information in these contracts mostly because the details, especially for the older contracts, are pretty irrelevant. (Click here if you want to read those details.)

But this year’s contract still matters a lot, so let’s focus on what happens should Creighton get fired or decides to move on.

If Creighton gets fired without cause, then he’s owed 100% of his base salary and supplemental income left on the contract (but not more than $1.5 million total). Pretty straight-forward.

If Creighton leaves for another job, then the amount he’ll owe back to EMU is dependent on what kind of job he’d split for.

If Creighton becomes a head coach at the Power 5 level, he’ll owe EMU 20% of what remained of his base salary and supplemental pay, but not more than $400,000.

If he leaves EMU for any other coaching position at the Power 5, Group of 5, or professional level, then he’s expected to pay back 7.5% of what was still owed on his contract (up to $175,000).