With the money that is around this sport growing on trees, football programs are evolving before our eyes. No longer is a team truly run by the head coach. General Managers are entering the conversation whose primary purpose is roster management via funds like a balance sheet. There have been talks of private equity infiltrating the CFB world. The traditional X’s and O’s coach that can coach their way to a successful football program is long gone. Now more than ever have we seen the importance of talent acquisition. Over the past 10 years, there have been a select few teams that have dominated and controlled the talent acquisition, keeping the talent at the top programs. While recruiting has always been a cornerstone of this game, the game has changed. NIL has made recruiting a bidding war for top end talent.

Enter, the Oregon Ducks. The Oregon Ducks currently sit at #6 in the 2024 team talent composite from the high school ranks. This is the highest they’ve reached as a program however usually are flirting with a top 10 ranking.

Everyone knows Phil Knight and Nike have a heavy influence to the University of Oregon and the Oregon football team. This isn’t breaking news. Oregon football has leaned on that relationship with Knight and Nike forever, and because of that, they have been able to attract top talent to the pacific northwest, otherwise not a hot bed for football talent. With the money growing like crazy in this sport to support recruiting, NIL, facilities, coaches etc., can the boosters and newly formed collectives keep up? Can we expect a stagnant amount of boosters/collectives year over year, maybe a little growth, keep up with the increasing demand of what it costs to be a successful program? Possibly. However, I would say Oregon is in a great position to tackle this wealth problem in the sport. Their money well has not reached maximum capacity as they have the power of the swoosh behind them while other programs may be priced out of attracting top talent or top coaches or NIL deals etc. We’ve seen this happen already with players choosing a school based on the size of the bag they receive. The 2022 Texas A&M class threw a ton of money at these recruits landing them 8 5-star players! That is insane. Since then, we’ve seen the top talent a bit more evenly distributed amongst the schools as other serious football programs have now had to pony up some more dough than in the past.

With the landscape of college football going through radical change, seemingly by the minute, I wonder if programs will look at the Oregon model and use them as a blueprint? An “investor” so to speak with deep pockets to help provide supplemental support to the collectives. Georgia already has the highest recruiting budget but what if they had Delta lining their pockets? That would be like bringing a rocket launcher to a fist fight. What if Arkansas tapped into Walmart? Could that bring them to be a serious contender in the SEC year in and year out? Obviously, Walmart and Delta don’t bring the same appeal as Nike does to an athlete but having that life support of cash on hand through those partnerships can add tremendous value when going to battle with rival schools for top talent.

With Oregon entering in the Big Ten starting in 2024, they are positioned very nicely to be even more competitive with the top kids just by having that big ten sticker on their helmets now. As the sport continues to grow and the opportunity to reach the top has been eased with the expansion of the 12 team playoff, how far will these programs go to stretch their dollars? I think in 10 years we might look back and say Oregon had the blueprint for this thing all along.