Mike Leach questions huge figures spent by Texas during Arch Manning recruitment

When it comes to college football recruiting, schools across the country have spent extensive amounts of money for several decades. So, when it was recently revealed in a report by The Athletic that the Texas Longhorns spent $280,000 on a recruiting visit featuring Arch Manning, it didn’t catch fans by surprise. Sure, it seems like a lot of money, but Manning is one of the most celebrated recruits in college football history. It figures that the Longhorns would go all out to land one of the nation’s top quarterbacks. Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach was far more skeptical. On his weekly radio show on Thursday, Leach said he found it hard to believe that hotel rooms could cost anywhere near that amount.

“Have you ever been to or heard of rooms that can eat up that much of $280,000? I haven’t,” Leach said in an article in the Misssissippi Clarion-Ledger written by Stefan Krajisnik. “Let’s make them really expensive. There’s eight recruits, hypothetically. Let’s make those rooms $3,000 a piece. Right there you still haven’t even dented it.”

“I think this is embellished,” Leach added. “… But I would be curious if someone managed to be creative enough to find a way to spend that much money in that period of time on that number of people. I’d be curious exactly how it was done and what they did. I have some serious, serious, serious doubts about this.”

Leach must have forgotten what the bill included

Landing a recruit like Arch Manning can be program changing in every sense of the word. Spending $280,000 is really a drop in the bucket, when you think about it. Not only that, Leach seemed to forget that the bill included airfare, cars, five-star hotels, open bar for the parents, custom cakes, TopGolf, an ice sculpture, and a lake cruise, according to The Athletic.

So, when you add all those things up, the bill doesn’t seem that excessive. It’s big-time college football. It’s big-time business. Millions and millions of dollars are spent every year on the sport. Has he taken a look at his own contract?

It’s not surprising at all. And give the Texas staff credit, while it was a lot of money, the lavish recruiting weekend worked, and Steve Sarkisian landed his signal-caller of the future.