Straight up: College football has gone off the rails since the quaint era when national titles were decided in pressboxes and money passed under the table, not in front of God and everyone. Coaches get rich just getting fired. How rich? Guarantees for the dozen or so already canned or expected to be let go this season could reach $200 million, enough to fund the scholarships of 5,000 female or Olympic athletes whose status hangs in the bank balance.
On the other hand, Texas schools still have a shot at three of the four power conference titles.
Hardly an equitable trade-off, but at least the state’s football fans are getting their money’s worth.
Halfway through the season, four schools from the Lone Star State — Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas and SMU — remain viable candidates to win their respective conferences. The SEC regular-season title might even come down to Black Friday in Austin. If SMU gets past Clemson on Saturday, Miami awaits Nov. 1.
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Meanwhile, if Tech doesn’t take the Big 12 for its first league title in more than 30 years, Cody Campbell should demand a refund.
Of course, it probably helps that there are more conference titles to go around now. Back in the day, there was just one.
Texas and A&M won more Southwest Conference titles than the rest of the Texas schools in the SWC put together. As a result, only a handful of times did multiple Texas schools finish in the polls. Generally speaking, the only way for Baylor or SMU or TCU or Rice or Houston to win a league title was in a down year by one or both of the flagship schools.
Each of the SWC schools did all or most of its recruiting within the state, and there were only so many four- or five-star recruits to go around. Texas, A&M and Oklahoma got most of them, except where the use of option offenses at those schools meant a passing talent like Tommy Kramer ended up at Rice. Before scholarship limits, Texas and A&M also signed huge recruiting classes, thus denying smaller schools a shot at talent that surely could have helped.
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But that was then, and this is now: NIL and the transfer portal have taken the top layer off the sport, granting access to anyone willing and able to pay the entry fee.
Both Texas and A&M continue to spend at a level commensurate with their status — along with Ohio State — as the biggest revenue producers in college football year in and year out. According to On3, Texas spent the most on its roster this year. Ohio State came in third, and the Aggies tied for fifth with Miami.
Second on the list? The Red Raiders, who reportedly spent $28 million. Most of it went to defense, where former Stanford edge rusher David Bailey has made a distinct impact with 8.5 sacks.
These are not Mike Leach’s Red Raiders. They’re still scoring a lot of points like they did under the Pirate, but they’re also ninth in the nation in total defense, two spots ahead of Texas.
By the way: A source told On3 that Tech “has to pay 30% more to get the guys because of location.” Must have been a source in Austin. Or College Station. Maybe even Dallas.
At any rate, 247Sports ranked the Red Raiders’ transfer class the second-best in the nation because of a dozen former four-star recruits.
What this all means is that I’m going to climb out on a limb here and say this is a better Tech team than the one that beat Texas in 2008 and finished 12th in the nation, simply because I don’t see anyone clobbering the Raiders 65-21 like Oklahoma did that year. Tech should win the Big 12 in a walk.
SMU will have a far more difficult go of it, starting Saturday at Clemson. The Tigers have won a couple of easy road games (North Carolina, Boston College) after a 1-3 start, but it’s hard to tell what you get from Dabo Swinney’s teams these days. Just the same, if the Mustangs can win their 11th straight ACC game, it sets up their game of the year when the calendar turns to November.
The bad news: Miami is the same team that buried South Florida, which ruined North Texas’ coming-out party last week. SMU is the best team left on the Hurricanes’ schedule. The Mustangs can’t hope they’ll be overlooked.
But all you can ask for is a shot, right? Even after losing to Baylor and TCU, the Mustangs’ title and College Football Playoff hopes sit squarely in front of them.
Considering everything that’s gone wrong in college football, at least the games are fun and the teams in Texas are good. Try not to think of poor James Franklin and how he’s going to get by on $49 million. Maybe he and Jimbo Fisher can start a club. Or a football team.
Twitter/X: @KSherringtonDMN
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