Fanhouse's Brett McMurphy put out his second annual report on college football expenditures. Let's dive in...
For the second straight year, it was THE Ohio State University leading the way, spending $31M on the program this past year. In the point-and-laugh department, Notre Dame is currently the No. 3 spender overall at just over $29M. Everybody point and laugh as they go 6-6 this year.
The Orange come in at $15.3M, which is good for 40th overall. Probably the most important part of the job Doug Marrone has done is that the on-field results are finally jiving with the money being laid out. That said, the expenditure is actually $2.5M less than it was the year before (we were 27th overall). What do you extrapolate from the fact that Syracuse whooped up on most of the conference the same year they decreased their budget? Probably not much, but it's fun to think about.
If you didn't already think the pressure is on Rutgers to finally take that program to the next level, they remain the biggest spender in the conference at $19.5M. That's the No. 15 highest spending program in the nation, five and six-loss seasons aren't going to cut it forever.
Pitt is No. 2, followed by Syracuse, UConn, West Virginia, Louisville, USF and finally Cincinnati. The Bearcats are going to have a tough time in the post-Brian Kelly world competing with that kind of budget.
Since expansion is all the rage in the salons these days, let's take a look at what our potential newbies are doing.
You'll either be disturbed or thrilled to find that TCU is spending more than any current Big East team at $20.6M (No. 13). That's way too much money to be spending in the Mountain West...that's BCS-level spending.
Central Florida is spending about half of what Cincy is spending at $8.5M (No. 77). East Carolina is spending slightly more than them at $8.56M (No. 76). Memphis has them both beat at $11.6M (No. 64), sad considering the state of their program.
As you probably guessed, the Big East is spending the least on average amongst all BCS Conference ($14.6M). But at least we're spending more than the MWC and CUSA.