My dad used to tell me all the time that "money isn't everything," and I think that mantra is probably applicable to today's college football landscape.
In case you haven't heard, the SEC is crying poor, and the Big Ten fans are absolutely loving it.
I honestly can't blame them, either.
On the surface, this looks like a massive admission of defeat from one of the flag bearers of the SEC and a huge win for the Big Ten.
Most of these Big Ten fans are in their 20s and 30s and spent the majority of their childhood and adolescence repeatedly climbing out of the lockers the SEC stuffed them in, so I understand wanting to take a victory lap after reading this headline.
The reality of the matter is, though, it takes a lot more than a bunch of rich boosters to make a championship football program.
Anybody crowing about how stacked the Big Ten's pockets are hasn't checked the recruiting rankings from either this cycle or the last several cycles.
The SEC still has nine of the top 20 recruiting classes for the class of 2026, including the number one overall class courtesy of the Georgia Bulldogs.
Those poor paupers in Tuscaloosa? They're currently ranked fourth and still have plenty of meat left on the recruiting bone.
I keep hearing about how many billionaires Michigan, UCLA, and Wisconsin have among their alumni ranks, but I have to say, it hasn't translated to many wins, both on the field and on the recruiting trail.
Michigan has signed plenty of adequate classes over the years, but last season's 6th-ranked class was only the second time the Wolverines cracked the top-10 since the turn of the decade.
They won a national championship in 2023 with a roster that was ranked 14th, a statistical anomaly in the four-team playoff era (gee, wonder how they pulled that off).
Bringing up Wisconsin and UCLA in an argument about rich alumni shifting the college football landscape is rich (pun intended).
The Badgers have signed one class in the top-25 since NIL became a thing, and haven't won double-digit games since 2019.
UCLA is even more of a joke when it comes to football relevance.
The Bruins' recruiting classes aren't even close to competitive and their results on the field have gotten worse every year, culminating in an absolute embarrassment of a game last week against Utah (a school with far less monetary resources than them).
It all comes down to how badly your alumni base wants to win.
I mentioned it in the summer when I disagreed with Colin Cowherd's assessment of the Big Ten/SEC NIL battle, but these coastal elites and tech nerds could have all the money in the world, and if they don't donate it to their school's NIL fund, it won't make a lick of difference.
I'm a Florida fan, and one of the school's alumni is none other than Chris Malachowsky.
If that name sounds familiar, it's because he's the co-founder of NVIDIA.
The man is a bonafide billionaire, and you know how much money he contributes to the Gators' NIL fund?
ZERO DOLLARS AND ZERO CENTS!
He doesn't give a damn about football and neither do most of these other billionaires who grew up in the West Village or The Hamptons.
Go ahead and brag about how many billionaires your school has.
For every Larry Ellison, there are ten more Chris Malachowsky's who donate their hard-earned cash to dumb things like science and art.
The Big Ten and SEC are as close and as competitive as ever, and that's great for the sport of college football.
But don't think for a second that the SEC is dead in the water because it doesn't have a bunch of apathetic alumni showing up on Forbes lists.
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