Buffs Ante Up

Just an interesting little read for your Friday and how CU's commitment to recruiting (and an increase in the budget!) has become a poster child for how programs gain momentum. This is from the Seattle Times in regards to the football team at the University of Washington.

Q: What is the recruiting budget for the football team? Has it gone up in recent years?

A: According to a spokesman, the recruiting budget this year was approximately $275,000 which essentially covers all travel by coaches and all visits by recruits. That is 5 percent more than two years ago. The questioner noted that Colorado's recruiting budget has essentially doubled since Dan Hawkins became coach two years ago (details here) and wondered if UW should do the same --- Colorado is said to spend more than $550,000 on recruiting. However, I would warn against making a direct comparison since you don't know if the two schools are including the exact same items in their budgets. Without going over it line-by-line, it's hard to know for sure if one school is spending a lot more than another, or simply categorizing expenses differently. Certainly, the reviews on UW's recruiting class this year would seem to indicate the Huskies are spending enough. Without a complete breakdown of the recruiting budget of Colorado, hard to know if they really are spending twice as much as UW, or just counting the expenses differently. It certainly looks, however, as if they are spending more. But without knowing all the details I'd be hesitant to really judge it.Also worth noting is that the NCAA and Pac-10 each enacted reforms aimed at curbing recruiting expenses in 2005 (I examined that in this story here).