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OMAHA, Neb.(AP) Nebraska football coach Bo Pelini is sacrificing potential bonus income for guaranteed money in his new contract.

Pelini's annual base salary goes to $1.85 million, from $1.1 million, under the five-year contract he signed last month.

His original contract promised an $800,000 bonus if the Cornhuskers won the national championship. The new contract includes a $500,000 bonus for the national title.

Unlike the old contract, the new one pays a $50,000 bonus for tying for the Big 12 North title, but not going to the conference championship. That happened in 2008.

The new contract also gives him a $100,000 bonus for going to a non-Bowl Championship Series game.

Even though those bonuses weren't in the previous contract, athletic director Tom Osborne approved a $50,000 payment to Pelini for the North Division tie with Missouri and a $100,000 payment for the Cornhuskers' Gator Bowl bid last season.

"I guess theoretically we wouldn't have had to, because it wasn't written into the contract. But we felt that was something that was just an oversight," Osborne said Wednesday. "We felt that was something that needed to be addressed. We're trying to do what we think is the right thing, the fair thing."

Pelini's potential bonus income from his players' academic achievements also declined under the new contract. Osborne said Pelini requested that a portion of those bonuses be divided among his assistants.

"He wanted to point out the fact that they're involved as well as he is in terms of making sure people are going to class and doing a good job academically," Osborne said.

Pelini's potential bonus income from his players' academic achievements also declined.

If the graduation rate for the football program is equal to or greater than that of Nebraska's general student body, he'll receive $25,000 - down from the $125,000 he would have gotten under the original contract.

Pelini will receive significantly less money for his players' hitting certain benchmarks in the NCAA's Academic Performance Rating system. Every Division I sports team calculates its APR each academic year, based on the eligibility, retention and graduation of each scholarship student-athlete.

Major-college football's average APR score was 934 in 2008. Pelini's contract calls for him to receive $7,500 if the Huskers' APR is 930 or above, $15,000 for 940-plus and $25,000 for 950-plus.

His original contract paid $125,000 for a score of 950 or better.

If Pelini gets fired, he'll receive $62,500 a month for the balance of the contract. If he finds a job that pays $750,000 a year, those payments would stop. If his next job were to pay less than $750,000, Nebraska would pay Pelini a lump sum based on $62,500 a month less his new monthly salary.

The damages Pelini would have to pay to the university if he were to resign are in line with the terms of his original contract. If Pelini resigns before the end of 2009, he would have to pay $750,000. That figure goes to $500,000 if quits in 2010 and $250,000 after that.

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