BATON ROUGE, La. -- With the LSU Tigers coming off a 9-3 season, an SEC championship and headed for a Sugar Bowl appearance, school officials have decided to raise coach Nick Saban's salary by $400,000 a year, a newspaper reported in Friday editions.

LSU and Saban's agent, Jimmy Sexton, reached an agreement in principle Thursday to increase the coach's salary, The Times-Picayune quoted LSU athletics director Skip Bertman as saying.

Saban will receive a $400,000 raise, bumping his annual salary to $1.6 million, according to an unidentified source quoted by the New Orleans newspaper.

Bertman said he and Sexton would communicate Friday by fax machine and hoped to announce a deal before the Jan. 1 Sugar Bowl. The game pits No. 12 LSU against seventh-ranked Illinois.

The news came on the day that Saban denied rumors he was a candidate for the head coaching job at Notre Dame. Bertman said he was contacted by Notre Dame athletics director Kevin White after the SEC championship game. White asked for permission to speak to Saban.

"I basically told them I wasn't interested in that job at this time, that our team was going to the Sugar Bowl, that we were going to play in the Sugar Bowl, and I was happy to be here at LSU," Saban said. "LSU has been good to me and things have worked out great here, and I'm just looking forward to the challenges we have."

Saban said his family played a large role in his decision not to talk to the Irish.

"People always look at you as a coach, but what I try to tell everybody is you're a person first," Saban said. "I've got kids in school, 11 years old and 15 years old. Moving, it's not easy. This was the toughest thing I ever did, leaving Michigan State to come to LSU. And it had nothing to do with LSU. I'm talking me personally. Moving kids out of school. Taking them off basketball teams. I mean, people don't understand that."

Bertman said that he wants to ensure that Saban stays at LSU and doesn't leave for another job.

"I don't think he's going to go, but I'm certainly not going to take any chances," Bertman said. "I'd like to wrap this up before the bowl game and get him to close the door."

Recently, former LSU athletics director Joe Dean was contacted by White, who wanted to know information about Saban, Bertman said. That sparked the rumors anew. Some of the reports irked Saban.

"It's ridiculous," Saban said. "It's a lie. It's unfounded. Somebody has a dream at night and decides to announce it publicly. That's all I can figure. It's really ridiculous."

The rumors, Saban said, have been somewhat detrimental to LSU's recruiting.

"I still think that we've been able to do fairly well because it really is all just speculation," he said.

Saban's name always comes up in connection with head coaching jobs, both in college and the NFL. Besides saying he wasn't going to Notre Dame, Saban said Thursday that he also doesn't plan on leaving LSU for pro ball.

"I haven't talked to any National Football League teams. Do I intend to? No. Has anybody tried to talk to me? No. That's basically the extent of it. And I don't know what else to say. I don't know how else to deny it," Saban said.