Of course Dabo Swinney is making that money—as he has won two national titles over the past three years, played in the title game three times over the past four and has reached the playoffs four years in a row, looking for number five right now.
Before that, he was Clemson's wide receivers coach for six years—never even holding the title of offensive coordinator, or anything higher—and was a dreaded holdover from a failed staff; in this case, Tommy Bowden who never got over the hump. Swinney took over in an interim role in 2008, was officially named head coach in 2009—and the majority of their fan base was up in arms, saying he was garbage hire—wanting to run him off for half a decade.
Finally wins the ACC year 3.5—and gets boat-raced 70-33 by West Virginia in the Orange Bowl—only to have Brent Venables fall in his lap; which no one saw coming, under the assumption he was an Oklahoma lifer, or would take a head coaching gig. Instead, Swinney lands a better version of a loyal Bud Foster-type, who changed everything for him when coming on in 2012.
Clemson's co-offensive coordinators—Tony Elliott and Jeff Scott—were absolute nobodies before taking over in 2015. Elliott was the running backs coach for four years; coaching up wide outs at South Carolina State and Furman the five years prior—while Scott coached at Blythewood High School in 2006, before coaching Presbyterian's wide outs in 2007 and taking over Clemson's in 2008 for the next seven seasons, before getting the co-OC title in 2015 along with Elliott.
Clemson was a staff of UNPROVEN UNKNOWNS and has since grown into a powerhouse program on par with Alabama, if having not surpassed them—yet you use Swinney as your benchmark that that it takes top notch guys across the board to succeed. Meanwhile, Miami just forked over a reported $1.5M for the services of Dan Enos—quarterback whisperer and "the guy Nick Saban wanted to promote to offensive coordinator in 2019"—and dude has been an absolute flop; despite UM paying an offensive coordinator more than it ever had before.
Literally every UM head coach and offensive coordinator over the past 15 years was MORE QUALIFIED ON PAPER than Swinney, Elliott or Scott—by a landslide—yet look how all that worked out. (Even Randy Shannon was a proven defensive coordinator, a Broyles Award winner and ran a national championship defense—while being a proven recruiter and a guy who played for UM, won a title, et al—while Swinney was a wideouts coach for a dead-beat head coach that had never won a meaningful game, outside of beating Daddy once or twice.)
Venables was the missing ingredient that took that program next level; and dude was one of the luckiest bounces in college football—effectively forced out of OU by Bob Stoops, when brother Mike wanted to return to his post (after things crapped out in Tuscon), making him available for Clemson.
Had Mike Stoops not returned to OU, a safe bet Venables is still in Norman right now, coaching under Lincoln Riley as the guy had "lifer" written all over him. The Tigers ended up landing one of the best defensive coordinators in the game—by pure luck—and the rest is history.
