Michigan coach says current college football model is unsustainable
- Thread starter Eurocat
- Start date
It is unsustainable for any but the top programs. That it is someone from one of those top programs saying the quiet part out load is pretty interesting
Or someone who spent year losing out on bidding wars at Utah and is now in the driver’s seat at a Blue Blood. How long will he last in Ann Arbor as a truth speaker & someone who avoids scandals?
Whittingham has a 5 year, $41 million contract plus incentives at Michigan and got a $13 million retirement payout from Utah upon leaving. No concerns there, totally sustainable, carry on.
The truth is there were only 12-15 schools who were benefiting from the old system and they are now upset that they have to spend so much to stay above the rest. Indiana was not competitive in the old system. Texas Tech was not competitive in the old system. The new system has exposed the blue bloods. So, yes the current system is unsustainable but I will bet the proposals that will come out will only favor reducing expenses (or increasing revenues) to the blue bloods.
Also a fair point.
“‘The new system sucks!’ says member of profession that got all of the money and all of the power while leading a school that monopolized all the success under the old system.”
The game is gone. Makes me sad every time I think about it. The super league will be the formalization of the end when we’re not included. NIL craziness, portal free agency, conference realignment chaos, 24 team CFP and 76 team MM… all death blows.
On the other hand, if a school like Indiana can win it all or Texas Tech can immediately compete… why can’t NU?
As has been debated on the board as long as I've been here, we could if admissions would go the way of Duke and if we paid the players enough to overcome our reputation as being an average or less school in the revenue sports.
I read that Cooper Flagg made over $25 million alone during his brief time at Duke.
I think we need to admit that Duke Athletics is on a different trajectory and more likely to compete in the new NIL world order than NU.
Indiana winning it means a hell of a lot less in this era when you’re paying mercenaries that don’t give a **** about your university, education or culture. They just want the bag.
Never going to allow minimum qualifiers nor should we. It would be a betrayal of all we’ve stood for 100+ years. Do you just have no standards/no morals and want to win at any cost?
If Congress actually reigns in this nonsense with a real rev share plan - like putting it in a trust which can only be unlocked with graduation - we can get back in the game.
So you're saying Duke has "no morals and no standards" - pretty high ranking both nationally and internationally for an institution with no morals or standards.
I agree that it's an overcorrection to cast aspersions on the entire university for the malleability of its academic standards for athletes.
But it's probably at least worth noting as to the attempted use of high ranking to rebut the point that we really should be over in 2026 the notion that prestige is in any way synonymous with character/aptitude. There are way too many smart-on-paper politicians (among other professional grifters) in the world to look at a degree as a proxy for judgment, moral or otherwise.
Some of the same people on here that scream from the mountain tops about the moral superiority of NU versus other top academic institutions also whine about the NU professor that was buddies with Epstein or the Alum that founder OnlyFans that recently passed away.
My read of it is that NU's "moral superiority" has always been aspirational. At its best, the university represents elite academic achievement and the professional contribution to society that should follow from as much. If you go fully down the rabbit hole on the subject you can even start talking about Phillipians 4:8/the university motto and the ideals of truth, honesty, etc. It's certainly led, for some people at least, to a proud tradition of high academic standards and devotion to public service. (And in that sense who could blame anyone for taking issue with those connected to the university who have more salacious/less morally righteous public track records?)
But NU is a human-built institution with the same flaws as any other enterprise led by people, and so mileage may vary on what it actually means in practice for the university (and its subdepartments and its graduates) to succeed, in everything ranging from the prestige of the jobs NU grads expect to the degree of compromise people are comfortable with in a pay-for-play college sports landscape. In short, there's more than one way to view value in life, and so beyond that, I say: shrug...
With sports, which bleeds over to the entire school, yes. No question.
From what we saw, yes Indiana was spending, but not sure it was at the level of the top programs like Alabama, Mich, dOSU and the like
Mark Cuban personally made sure they got their QB.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7256199/2026/05/05/mark-cuban-fernando-mendoza-nil-deal/
Think Mendoza and many of his teammates that were transfers really cared about the program, their coaches and what they ended up accomplishing, so wouldn't paint every player/program with that broad brush.
It was a lot less than what the highest paid transfer QBs were getting, esp. what Dook was paying Mensah (who is a prime example of a mercenary), and it wasn't like Mendoza didn't have options (nearly ended up with Smart and UGA).
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I believe that what Indiana finally ended up paying for transfers was far less than certain of the Big Boys were spending. Not sure what will happen going forward but for last year the guys playing for them seemed more that they were buying into the program and situation. Not saying that they were not getting paid. Just did not seem that that was all they were there for. That is why it was easier to root for them than the others
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Most of those schools were in the SEC, which is why there has been a lot of gnashing of teeth from the south. along with continuing to promote falsehoods like how much deeper the SEC is than the B1G.
One if the reasons that Sankey and other powers that be in the SEC are resistant to the 24 team PO format is that having even greater access will only further compound the spread of talent.
To be fair, Dook does many of the things that football and basketball "factories" do, but they are good at hiding it and not letting such things affect their academic standing (if anything, success in sports has helped elevate their academic standing).
One of the things Dook does that's not necessarily tied to athletics is that they are known to be very aggressive when it comes to admitting the progeny of the uber-wealthy (yes, pretty much all schools do this, but Dook is particularly notorious for it).
Apparently, there are non-revenue athletes who fly privately instead of with their team.
Scuttlebutt is that Dook has been aggressively lobbying B1G schools (NU, UM, the WC schools) as to what their inclusion can bring to each particular member (and not just the conference as a whole), where one school called it "excessive."
If it came down to it, would much rather the conference add Stanford.
I have no problem with the Northwestern keeping its standards, but I feel they need to take a wholistic approach when determining if players should be admitted academically. I think Big John Thompson at Georgetown was on the right side of this issue when he opposed the NCAA proposition. I would be proud to have kids that may have underachieved in their previous schooling, but do want to work hard at their education and athletics. They may need more support than other NU students, but if they are going to put in the work, so should the University to help them succeed.
Maybe that world does not exist anymore in big time college athletics, but I would like to think that it could at Northwestern.
First it is an opinion, But here is a piece suggesting that they spent around $15 mill, That is a whole lot less than the $40 mill that we have heard that the big boys were spending
Curt Cignetti Divulges Amount of NIL Money Indiana Hoosiers Spent on National Championship
The Indiana Hoosiers won the national title last season. Curt Cignetti talked about the NIL money he spent to get that done.
heavy.com
Poor reading comprehension. He said "closer to $15 M than $40 M" and "obviously somewhere in between." That means like $25 M. Since the tops THIS year is $40 M and the tops last year was like $30 M (except OSU, who spent $35), they were basically right up there among that top tier.First it is an opinion, But here is a piece suggesting that they spent around $15 mill, That is a whole lot less than the $40 mill that we have heard that the big boys were spending
Curt Cignetti Divulges Amount of NIL Money Indiana Hoosiers Spent on National Championship
The Indiana Hoosiers won the national title last season. Curt Cignetti talked about the NIL money he spent to get that done.
I think he was like $2.5-$3. He wasn't up there in the Mensah range.
There was another article that suggested that they paid out $13.6 mill in 2024. It sounded like it was closer to $15 mill than you you are indicating, While significant, still a lot less than the big boys
Here is the article that indicates $2024 spending was $13.6 mill
Anonymous Big Ten Coach Reveals What Really Sparked Indiana Football’s Turnaround | College Sports Network
Indiana football’s bold hire of Curt Cignetti, savvy portal moves, and $13.6M NIL boost turned the Hoosiers into surprise 2024 College Football Playoff contenders.
collegefootballnetwork.com
Further indication that it was closer to $15 mill than indicated. Again, still significant (and likely a lot more than we spent) but likely at lot less that the big boys
2024? Massively irrelevant data point and totally wrong year. Try to keep up.There was another article that suggested that they paid out $13.6 mill in 2024. It sounded like it was closer to $15 mill than you you are indicating, While significant, still a lot less than the big boys
Here is the article that indicates $2024 spending was $13.6 mill
Anonymous Big Ten Coach Reveals What Really Sparked Indiana Football’s Turnaround | College Sports Network
Indiana football’s bold hire of Curt Cignetti, savvy portal moves, and $13.6M NIL boost turned the Hoosiers into surprise 2024 College Football Playoff contenders.