Texas' Sarkisian Believes Some SEC Teams Spend Nearly $50M on CFB Rosters, Talks Arch Manning Value

Texas' Steve Sarkisian is the latest college football head coach to gossip about how much many other programs might be spending in the NIL age, a growing trend in the profession.

"I don't think there's a team in our conference that doesn't pay, at minimum, $30 million for their roster," he told reporters Thursday. "I think there are some that are close to $50 million, truthfully. I think the reports of what people say (teams) are paying based on evaluation of players, I don't think those are necessarily true."

He also believes Big Ten schools are spending similarly to SEC programs, with some ACC and Big 12 schools in that mix as well.

As for the numbers floating around regarding Texas' payroll, Sarkisian believes they are often overestimated.

"I saw a valuation of what we pay our roster. I think that's at minimum $10 million off," he said. "Just because a player has a valuation of a certain number doesn't mean that that's what we pay him. Arguably, the player who should be our highest-paid player on our roster (quarterback Arch Manning) is probably the 10th-highest paid quarterback in the country. Because he has other deals through NIL that he is doing us a favor, in essence, saying, 'Hey, you don't have to pay me what these other guys are paying other quarterbacks because I've got deals that my agents and my team are working for me.' The valuation of our roster looks like one thing when in reality a lot of our players were different because our players are getting deals on their own through their agency."

Athletic departments are capped at directly providing $20.5 million to players on their roster, though athletes are free to independently sign NIL deals on their own that don't count against that cap. Sarkisian believes schools have gotten more creative in skirting the cap outlined by the House v. NCAA settlement.

But if other schools are doing it, it's hard to imagine Texas isn't as well. Hate the game, not the player.