Dollars and No Sense: Recruiting

Bleacher Report, yes them, keep reading....Bleacher Report produced an article outlining recruiting expenses using forms the Department of Education requires schools to submit each year on their athletic department related income and expenses. It's an interesting look at priorities, and how well we're maximizing dollars.

The top of the list is your expected SEC, Notre Dame, Penn State and wait, Illinois? Seriously who let them in there? Leave the door open in the summer time and a whole mess of crawling stuff finds its way in the house. The bottom of the list houses your MAC-tastic schools. Unless of course you filter out the power five athletic departments. Filter them out and oh wait that's us there at the bottom.

The numbers reveal our reliance on and preference for Texas recruits. That part seems pretty obvious. Still, it's not the whole pictures as TCU spends 100K more than we do and they're actually, you know, in Texas. it's odd that a program with an estimated top 25 value could spend so little.

On one hand I'm proud we have a football staff capable of making bowl games and successfully recruiting with relatively limited resources. On the other, if football recruiting is not our financial priority, I want to know what is. I'll probably dive into my new favorite website and take a look soon.