“… there’s going to come a time in the very, very near future where the top 25 NIL pots of money are going to mirror exactly the top 25 teams in the country. … That’s where it’s heading and there’s no debate about it, unless they change the rules. I don’t think they can backpedal now with the can of worms that they’ve opened.”
Kyle Whittingham, the venerable Utah football coach, said that three years ago. He could gloat now and say that he told us so (he won’t). He saw what was coming in 2022, and on Saturday his prediction was shoved in his face. His Utah football team lost at home to Texas Tech — just about the best team that obscenely rich boosters and money can buy — 34-10. The Utes were considered one of the best teams in the Big 12 and they were manhandled.
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Texas Tech is unbeaten after four games and ranks third nationally in points differential, having outscored teams by a combined score of 208-45. The Red Raiders, who haven’t finished in the top 25 since 2009 and have been pretty much a nondescript program forever, climbed to No. 12 in the national rankings this week.
They did not build this team the old-fashioned way — by player development and coaching — but the new way: they bought a team.
The Red Raiders had a very expensive offseason. According to On3, Texas Tech spent $28 million in NIL money this year to build a football team, second only to Texas ($35-$40 million) among college football programs. The NIL funding is being led by Cody Campbell, a former Texas Tech offensive lineman who has become a billionaire in the oil business.
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According to Sports Illustrated, the Red Raiders invested $1 million in quarterback Behren Morton, but most of their NIL money was spent on the offensive and defensive lines (as Whittingham found out Saturday, watching the Raiders total 484 yards — 173 yards on the ground — while limiting Utah to a mere 263 total yards). As reported by Brandon Judd of the Deseret News, the Red Raiders ranked 122nd in the nation last year in scoring defense, giving up 34.8 points per game. This year it’s 11.25.
“I see Texas Tech as a stock, and this is the equivalent of getting Bitcoin when it was 13 cents, or Tesla or Apple at their IPO,” Texas Tech general manager James Blanchard told CBS Sports in June.
Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire was exactly 30 seconds into his press conference remarks following the win over Utah when he addressed the elephant in the room — the well-publicized funding of his team.
“There’s a lot of things said about our team and a lot of things written about the cost of the roster and this and that,” McGuire said. “I would challenge anybody to have a closer locker room, guys that care more about wearing the Double-T than care about themselves, and that shows up in tight games.”
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File that under non sequitur — what does any of that have to do with the issue of NIL money and the obscene amounts that are being spent for a school’s football team?
If McGuire seems to be defensive, it’s understandable. There has been much controversy surrounding Texas Tech’s spending spree and its sudden rise in college football circles. Just like that, an upstart outsider has shouldered its way into the company of bluebloods by buying its way into the club, in this case with Campbell’s oil money. It’s no different than what Oregon did with Phil Knight/Nike money, or what any of the other elite schools have done with booster resources.
Ohio State reportedly spent $20 million in NIL money to build a team that won last year’s national championship. Someday that will be considered a bargain. There are reports that Ohio State has spent upwards of $35 million on the 2025 roster, which of course would actually surpass Texas Tech’s NIL expenditures.
Schools are allowed to make direct payments of up to $20.5 million to players under NCAA revenue sharing rules (according to the NCAA, this amounts to an average of $15 million per school, or $146,151 per player). There is no limit on NIL money, so, unlike professional teams, there is no salary cap.
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This year’s biggest spenders per On3 are, in order, Texas, Texas Tech, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas A&M/Miami (tied), Michigan/USC (tied), Tennessee and Auburn. Nine of them are ranked in the top 21 of the latest poll.
If the NCAA was much too stingy and controlling with athletes in the past — penalizing them for accepting a free pizza from a coach — then it has gone much too far the other way, but as Whittingham noted years ago, there’s no turning back now.
Texas Tech has crashed the club, at least to this point. After pumping all that money into the program, McGuire summed up the situation this summer: “We should expect to play at a high level. There are no excuses now.”
Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham, left, greets Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Joey McGuire, right, after the game at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
