Following the most successful season in Mississippi State soccer history, Bulldogs head coach James Armstrong will see a substantial increase in his annual salary.
Armstrong, who arrived in Starkville in 2019, had signed a four-year contract extension at the beginning of 2023 worth $192,000 per year. In 2022, MSU won both a Southeastern Conference Tournament game and an NCAA Tournament game for the first time ever, and the Bulldogs outdid themselves last fall, going 5-3-2 in conference play and reaching the third round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.
On Feb. 6, MSU athletic director Zac Selmon announced a contract extension for Armstrong through 2027 worth $230,000 annually, according to public records obtained through a Mississippi Public Records Act request by The Dispatch. Armstrong made $130,000 per year during his first four years with the Bulldogs.
The new salary puts Armstrong on par with several of his SEC peers, and is significantly more than the head soccer coaches at Missouri, South Carolina and Tennessee are making. His earnings are most comparable to Alabama’s Wes Hart, who received an extension last year that pays him $235,000 annually. That extension came on the heels of the Crimson Tide reaching their first-ever College Cup (college soccer’s Final Four) in 2022.
Prior to his tenure at MSU, the native of Yorkshire, England spent six years on the coaching staff at Auburn, and he worked with the U.S. Olympic Development Program before that. The Tigers made five NCAA Tournament appearances during Armstrong’s time there, reaching the national quarterfinals in 2016.
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