How much does Virginia Tech spend on recruiting?
ESPN.com posted an interesting article the other day comparing recruiting budgets for 99 of the 120 Football Bowl Subdivision schools, excluding private institutions that are not required to release such information (and some public ones in Pennsylvania that are afforded that privacy).
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It showed that the Hokies spent $243,513 on recruiting in the 2011 fiscal year after spending $236,628 in 2010. According to the article, that includes travel, on-campus visits, mailings and more.
How does that compare to the rest of the ACC? Surprisingly, it’s very low on the list:
Team — 2011 figure — 2010 figure
- Georgia Tech — $883,430 — $511,494
- North Carolina — $580,200 — $545,351
- Clemson — $490,305 — $469,003
- Florida State — $433,236 — $349,444
- N.C. State — $291,456 — N/A
- Virginia — $276,806 — $153,973
- Maryland — $266,958 — $239,704
- Virginia Tech — $243,513 — $236,628
- (Not available — Miami, Boston College, Wake Forest, Duke)
That’s not quite the order I would have expected. Interesting to see that Georgia Tech spent the most on recruiting, although a glance at its commitment list from last year shows a good number of players from Florida, which would increase travel costs.
It’s a little surprising to see Virginia Tech at the bottom of the list, but in a way it also makes sense. The Hokies do most of their work in state, mitigating travel costs, and haven’t had a recent coaching change that usually results in a surge in spending on recruiting (Virginia is a good example of that, increasing by $120,000 its recruiting budget from 2010 to 2011).
The Hokies aren’t the only successful, big-time football program that doesn’t go overboard on recruiting spending. Oklahoma ($356,414), Ohio State ($320,937), LSU ($302,882), South Carolina ($248,333), Oklahoma State ($226,475), West Virginia ($207,933) and Wisconsin ($204,181) are a few successful programs that didn’t break the bank with their 2011 recruiting budget, although those figures fluctuate from year-to-year.
(And as a disclaimer, it’s not made clear in the article if every school reports its recruiting budget exactly the same. These figures are from forms submitted by the schools to the NCAA every January.)
As you’d imagine, the SEC out-spends everyone on the recruiting front, with six schools in the top 10 of the public schools listed. Here are the top spenders in 2011:
- Tennessee — $1,479,099
- Alabama — $980,882
- Auburn — $950,378
- Georgia Tech — $883,430
- Arkansas — $666,419
- Georgia — $623,224
- Texas Tech — $611,910
- Florida — $602,929
- Oregon — $590,683
- Texas — $577,976
- North Carolina — $580,200
- Michigan — $577,663
- Illinois — $545,363
- Army — $511,840
- Ole Miss — $495,233
June 13, 2012 - 10:19 AM
Boy, talk about not getting much bang for your buck – way to go Big Orange!
What a bunch of creamsicle colored morons.
The shocker on that list of Top 15 is Army. One has to ask “why?”
My guess on Army is that it has such a specific type of recruit (one willing to do military service, commit to that lifestyle) that it has an expansive area it has to cover across the country. Those costs add up.
Seeing how much more the SEC spends than other conferences makes you wonder if recruits really value playing in the SEC, or if the SEC just puts that much more effort into attracting recruits.
I would think that if there really was a perceived premium to playing in the SEC, that the SEC wouldn’t need to put so much money into recruiting to get the best players.
Haven’t seen much here on the latest in the academic scandal at UNC where 18 students(football players) were enrolled in a summer school class. It was suppose to be a lecture class but was changed by the professor(Dept Hd) to an essay (15 pages) at the end of semester class. It was in Afro-American studies. Administration was unaware of the change.No attendence required, just a 15 page term paper. Go UNC.
I also suspect that Army accounts for recruiting according to a very specific set of budget criteria that may not apply to everyone else. The Army is a federal entity and they would compensate travel via something called the Joint Travel Regulation (JTR). I would guess that Army travel rules are a great deal different than anyone else’s.
The one that surprises me is Alabama. With their program you would think that players would be knocking their door down.
Saban is a relentless and tireless recruiter. And the postage on the 105 letters he sent one day to a recruit in Georgia ain’t free.
It’s part of the reason you see Auburn so high on the list. From the moment he was hired, Chizik poured a ton of money and effort into recruiting to keep up with Alabama and Saban, who had a two-year head start on him.
Andy, do you know where Navy and Air Force fall? Are they just behind Army? Logically, they should be. I’d be curious to know.
Like your disclaimer, not every school reports the costs the same way, but I’d bet those three would do so – they’re probably all bound by the same guidelines.
Air Force spent 335K. Navy was not available. Not sure why. Seems like a public institution if ever there was one.
Probably because Navy is drowning in debt with their pipe dream of a super stealthy warship that have everybody crying foul.
The only thing I can glean from the recruiting budgets is that big time spender doesn’t always translate to consistency and winning titles on a regular basis. I think the exception is Alabama and as long as Saint (or Satan, depending on who you ask) Saban is at the helm, I think recruits are going to be lining up. However, I have to take note that USC is making major strides in securing top flight recruits as well.
I’m also curious to where Oregon falls as Sugar Daddy Knight is their major benefactor.
University officials at GA TECH & UNC had better start looking underneath some rocks for their ill-spent recruiting dollars. There appears to be lots of bucks being passed around to yield such a minimum “sting”. The bee’s budget in particular, is appalling for an ACC team.
I’m not 100% sure, but isn’t USC one of the schools that doesn’t have to provide this info?
Is this the same budget that things like “Cam Newton’s salary” falls into as well?
Another example of why we lose every Big game we play.
I assumed he meant South Carolina when referencing USC. Maybe we should say USCe and USCw.
And I thought about making the Cam Newton joke earlier, then decided not to. It’s always there for the taking, though.
I was shocked to see that even Army spends more recruiting than we do !
Drew, are you going to donate more money so we can win “The Big One”?
When can the atheletic dept expect your check?
When I said USC, I meant Southern California, not South Carolina.
Drew, your logic that this list of spenders is why VT loses “every big game we play” doesn’t hold much water when you realize that the number one team on this list lost to VT last time they played.
Do ACC title games not count as big games? Because we’ve won more of those than we’ve lost.
VT does need to win more bowl games, but look at VT’s bowl games since joining the ACC. VT is 3-5 in bowls since 2004. 3 of those losses were by 3 points. 1 of those losses was by 7. The only bad one was Stanford, where we lost by 376, at least that’s what it looked like.