Contracts finalized for 4 more UA assistants

Arkansas tight ends coach Barry Lunney Jr. works with players prior to a game against Texas A&M on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017, in Arlington, Texas.

— Arkansas football assistants Barry Lunney Jr., Justin Stepp, Dustin Fry and Ron Cooper are under contract through Feb. 28, 2020, according to copies of their respective employment agreements that were released through an open records request Tuesday.

The contracts were finalized this week with signatures from University of Arkansas President Donald Bobbitt and UA, Fayetteville Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz.

All of Arkansas' non-coordinators are working on multi-year contracts, a stray from past years when most non-coordinators worked on one-year contracts that ran from July 1-June 30, consistent with other university employees. In 2017, the only assistant with a multi-year contract was former offensive coordinator Dan Enos.

Salaries for Lunney, Stepp, Fry and Cooper were released last week. Fry, the offensive line coach and run game coordinator, will make $400,000 per year; Cooper, a defensive backs coach, will make $355,000 per year; and Lunney, the tight ends coach, and Stepp, the receivers coach, will make $350,000 apiece.

Contracts have been finalized for nine of the Razorbacks' 10 on-field assistant coaches. The lone contract not yet finalized is for offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Joe Craddock, whose annual salary of $600,000 has previously been released.

The total pay for Arkansas assistants in 2018 is $4.395 million, according to documents released last week.