In July, we analyzed the financial investment required to land one of the top recruiting classes in college football and we found that there’s an arms race, or perhaps more accurately a check-writing race, on the recruiting trail that’s led by the SEC.

Georgia, which landed the No. 1 recruiting class in 2018, led all schools by spending upwards of $2.6 million during the 2017-18 fiscal year — roughly $300,000 more than Alabama, which spent the second-most nationally.

Heck, even perennial Big 12 basement dweller Kansas spent $1.1 million!

And while our original story included Group of Five schools like Boise State, Cincinnati and Houston, it focused on Power Five schools because, let’s face it, those are the schools that most frequently land four and five-star recruits, and top recruiting classes.

But that doesn’t mean that Group of Five programs aren’t also making considerable financial investments into recruiting. This analysis focuses exclusively on schools that play in the AAC, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West or Sun Belt, which are collectively guaranteed one spot in a New Year’s Six bowl game.

Stadium has obtained the NCAA Financial Reports for the 2018 fiscal year for more than 40 Group of Five schools. These reports are submitted to the NCAA annually, and they list detailed financial data regarding the operating revenue and expenses for each school’s athletic department.

As a reminder, NCAA Financial Reports are unavailable for private schools, state-affiliated schools or schools that are located in states where one must be a resident in order to submit a public records request.

One interesting observation from the table below is that Boise State has landed almost as many blue-chip recruits (four) in the last two recruiting cycles as the rest of the schools combined (five).

Group of Five Spending Ranking Among Schools Examined	School	Conference	Football Recruiting Expenses in FY18	2018 Recruiting Class Ranking	2019 Recruiting Class Ranking	3/4-Star Recruits in Last Two Classes
1	UNLV	Mountain West	$503,461	99th	100th	24 (24/0)
2	Wyoming	Mountain West	$494,085	126th	97th	18 (18/0)
3	South Florida	American	$445,883	65th	77th	44 (44/0)
4	UConn	American	$432,480	102nd	118th	23 (23/0)
5	Boise State	Mountain West	$414,229	57th	50th	40 (36/4)
6	Memphis	American	$411,452	80th	67th	40 (39/1)
7	Nevada	Mountain West	$386,323	81st	93rd	30 (30/0)
8	Cincinnati	American	$374,630	47th	79th	38 (37/1)
9	East Carolina	American	$369,776	89th	78th	33 (33/0)
10	Eastern Michigan	MAC	$366,858	110th	123rd	18 (18/0)
11	Ohio	MAC	$346,579	121st	103rd	18 (18/0)
12	Florida Atlantic	C-USA	$339,748	75th	60th	43 (43/0)
13	Southern Miss	C-USA	$324,634	83rd	82nd	40 (40/0)
14	New Mexico	Mountain West	$322,949	124th	120th	18 (18/0)
15	Texas State	Sun Belt	$294,642	107th	136th	12 (12/0)
16	Toledo	MAC	$288,117	67th	73rd	43 (43/0)
17	Old Dominion	C-USA	$286,487	128th	117th	14 (14/0)
18	Charlotte	C-USA	$286,370	111th	132nd	10 (10/0)
19	Marshall	C-USA	$283,931	74th	71st	45 (45/0)
20	Miami (OH)	MAC	$273,502	130th	89th	24 (24/0)
21	Kent State	MAC	$272,132	100th	102nd	22 (22/0)
22	Appalachian State	Sun Belt	$270,308	113th	101st	26 (26/0)
23	UTSA	C-USA	$270,286	85th	96th	32 (32/0)
24	Buffalo	MAC	$269,552	136th	106th	12 (12/0)
25	FIU	C-USA	$258,126	69th	88th	35 (33/2)
26	Hawaii	Mountain West	$256,948	96th	116th	27 (27/0)
27	Houston	American	$251,975	73rd	72nd	37 (37/0)
28	Western Michigan	MAC	$249,215	76th	92nd	34 (34/0)
29	San Diego State	Mountain West	$245,879	79th	91st	33 (33/0)
30	UTEP	C-USA	$245,678	129th	112th	11 (11/0)
31	Bowling Green	MAC	$235,425	91st	129th	20 (20/0)
32	Utah State	Mountain West	$226,094	109th	90th	29 (29/0)
33	Fresno State	Mountain West	$212,791	92nd	87th	(30/1)
34	Middle Tennessee	C-USA	$203,494	104th	86th	26 (26/0)
35	Central Michigan	MAC	$200,537	120th	104th	16 (16/0)
36	Georgia State	Sun Belt	$187,257	95th	98th	26 (26/0)
37	Western Kentucky	C-USA	$177,709	84th	87th	38 (38/0)
38	San Jose State	Mountain West	$173,212	94th	119th	24 (24/0)
39	Ball State	MAC	$151,607	119th	125th	18 (18/0)
40	North Texas	C-USA	$150,991	101st	75th	35 (35/0)
41	Northern Illinois	MAC	$116,796	93rd	108th	26 (26/0)
42	Georgia Southern	Sun Belt	$113,511	90th	115th	21 (21/0)
43	Louisiana-Monroe	Sun Belt	$74,012	118th	128th	15 (15/0)

NOTE: Financial data for SMU, Tulane, Tulsa and Rice are unavailable since they’re private institutions; for Temple because it’s a state-related institution; for UCF because the UCF Athletics Association is a direct-support organization of the university, which means its records are exempt from public records laws; for Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Troy and South Alabama due to state records laws; for Louisiana-Lafayette due to the cost associated with fulfilling the request; for Navy, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, UAB, Akron, Air Force and Colorado State because they’ve yet to respond to public records requests.

NOTE: This story has been updated to include Fresno State and North Texas’ recruiting data.

For perspective, Wisconsin spent $350,695 on football recruiting during the 2018 fiscal year, which was the lowest amount among the 50 Power Five schools examined, and the Badgers would rank 11th in spending among the Group of Five schools examined.

We found that there was a correlation between recruiting expenses and recruiting class rankings among Power Five schools, but there was no such correlation among Group of Five schools, as you’ll see in the scatter plot below.

You could make an argument that a spending-to-ranking correlation doesn’t exist in Group of Five recruiting for several reasons.

One is that 21 of the 43 Group of Five schools examined spent between $200,000 and $300,000 on recruiting in 2018, so there’s a smaller overall financial investment in recruiting and smaller differences between what individual schools spend.

Would you expect the fact that Western Michigan spent roughly $14,000 more on recruiting than conference foe Bowling Green to lead to a significant advantage for the Broncos over the Falcons?

Probably not.

Another reason such a correlation doesn’t exist is geography.

Wyoming, which spent the second-most among the Group of Five schools examined and which spent the highest percentage of its athletic department’s recruiting budget on football, only signed one in-state recruit among its 22-player recruiting class in 2018.

Twelve of the players in that class were from California, so Wyoming’s coaching staff likely had to spend more money on air travel to recruit players from more talent-rich states.

When we took a deep dive into LSU and Oregon’s itemized recruiting expenses, we found that roughly 23 percent ($272,000) of Oregon’s recruiting expenses during the 2018 calendar year were on airfare and nearly 17 percent (almost $150,000) of LSU’s recruiting expenses last year were on special recruiting meals, so a significant portion of a school’s spending on football recruiting goes towards airfare, rental cars, hotels and food.

Being located in a remote area — at least in regards to where talented high school football players are located — only adds to those travel expenses.

Q: How big of a priority is football in an athletic department?

A: The table below lists Group of Five schools in descending order of what percent of their overall recruiting spending was dedicated to football.

School	FY18 Recruiting Spending on Football	FY18 All-Sport Recruiting Spending	% Spent on Football
Wyoming	$494,085	$887,366	55.7%
Texas State	$294,642	$531,321	55.5%
Ohio	$346,579	$635,731	54.5%
Appalachian State	$270,308	$503,266	53.7%
Boise State	$414,229	$773,739	53.5%
Toledo	$288,117	$557,945	51.6%
Florida Atlantic	$339,748	$683,178	49.7%
Memphis	$411,452	$833,664	49.4%
Western Michigan	$249,215	$518,978	48.0%
Southern Miss	$324,634	$687,450	47.2%
Kent State	$272,132	$582,693	46.7%
Marshall	$283,931	$614,505	46.2%
Buffalo	$269,552	$585,562	46.0%
East Carolina	$369,776	$805,605	45.9%
FIU	$258,126	$562,206	45.9%
Bowling Green	$235,425	$526,245	44.7%
Georgia State	$187,257	$421,635	44.4%
Charlotte	$286,370	$650,398	44.0%
Cincinnati	$374,630	$856,882	43.7%
South Florida	$445,883	$1,029,164	43.3%
UNLV	$503,461	$1,173,505	42.9%
San Jose State	$173,212	$409,818	42.3%
UTSA	$270,286	$655,670	41.2%
Nevada	$386,323	$943,618	40.9%
New Mexico	$322,949	$803,502	40.2%
Middle Tennessee	$203,494	$509,279	40.0%
Eastern Michigan	$366,858	$920,072	39.9%
North Texas	$150,991	$378,188	39.9%
Utah State	$226,094	$592,703	38.1%
UTEP	$245,678	$658,861	37.3%
Central Michigan	$200,537	$549,165	36.5%
Houston	$251,975	$698,178	36.1%
Northern Illinois	$116,796	$323,570	36.1%
San Diego State	$245,879	$684,265	35.9%
Old Dominion	$286,487	$805,815	35.6%
Louisiana-Monroe	$74,012	$221,345	33.4%
Miami (OH)	$273,502	$830,375	32.9%
Fresno State	$212,791	$647,539	32.9%
Western Kentucky	$177,709	$562,304	31.6%
Ball State	$151,607	$479,643	31.6%
Hawaii	$256,948	$818,660	31.4%
UConn	$432,480	$1,406,823	30.7%
Georgia Southern	$113,511	$390,582	29.1%

 

Conference comparison

Here’s a look at how much every Group of Five conference spent on recruiting per school, on average, in 2018.

Conference	Number of Schools Examined	Avg. Recruiting Spending
American	6	$381,032
Mountain West	10	$323,597
Conference USA	11	$257,041
MAC	11	$251,847
Sun Belt	5	$187,946

 

MORE: This Is How Much Power Five Schools Spend on College Football Recruiting