Schools such as Wake Forest, Northwestern or Southern California are exempt from freedom of information requests for documents such as coaching contracts. Private schools, though, must note their five highest-paid employees on certain IRS documents, such as Form 990, and that list usually includes the football and basketball head coaches.

Sometimes a private school will release current contract information, such as TCU and Wake Forest did for the USA TODAY survey. Others, such as Stanford, did not have any athletic department personnel among the school's highest-paid employees.

The most recent tax information covers the fiscal year 2007-08, and that shows Southern California coach Pete Carroll with total compensation of $4.4 million. The IRS form at Wake Forest for that year showed coach Jim Grobe making $4.2 million, though athletics director Ron Wellman says some data were incorrectly entered. Also, $910,115 of deferred income was added that year, and Grobe's contract was restructured a year after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference title. His compensation that year, including bonuses, was roughly $2.5 million. This year it's a little more than $2.1 million.

While the IRS forms are not current, they can be a window on what some major private schools were paying coaches in the 2007 season. For example:

•Baylor. Paid former coach Guy Morriss $1,685,667.

•Boston College. Paid former coach Jeff Jagodzinski $1,100,790.

•Navy. Athletic department operates as a non-profit; paid Paul Johnson $1,074,767.

•Notre Dame. In addition to having paid current coach Charlie Weis $640,851 (forms don't include income from other sources), paid former coach Tyrone Willingham $650,000 as part of his buyout.

•USC. Besides Carroll, it paid then-assistant Steve Sarkisian $1,154,969. (He was No. 3 on USC's best-paid list, behind then-basketball coach Tim Floyd.)

•SMU. Paid former coach Phil Bennett $519,307.

•Syracuse. Paid former coach Greg Robinson $1,190,078.