When you look at college football over the past several seasons, there's started to be a shift in power between the schools that everyone is historically used to seeing dominate and the schools that are on the rise. NIL coming into the picture in college football has allowed any program to become a powerhouse with the right backing.
Texas Tech has been proof of this more than anything else as former Red Raider offensive lineman Cody Campbell has been backing his alma mater on the NIL front. Last offseason, we saw Texas Tech buy one of the best transfer classes in the Country and it helped them win the Big 12 and make the College Football Playoff.
This offseason hasn't been any different as the Red Raiders landed the Transfer Portal's top quarterback Brendan Sorsby and have surrounded him with nice pieces. As schools like Texas Tech have started to win big for traditional recruits, it's dealing a further hit to the programs who used to dominate the sport.
Cody Campbell calls out the biggest flaw with two SEC teams
The Texas Tech Booster appeared on Will Cain Country where he called out the lack of donor support at Auburn and Alabama.
"You can look at the transfer portal rankings right now, schools like Alabama and Auburn are struggling. They don’t have the booster support. Nothing against Alabama, I have a ton of respect for that program. But they can’t raise the money like the University of Texas can… They don’t have as much money in the institution itself, they don’t have the donor support."Cody Campbell
In a sense, Cody Campbell is absolutely correct with the fact that neither program has found success in the Transfer Portal this offseason. Alabama has been surprisingly quiet opting for developmental pieces rather than proven stars, especially with Hollywood Smothers flipping from Alabama to the Texas Longhorns.
Where Cody Campbell may be off the mark is the fact that Alabama is still recruiting the High School ranks at an incredible ranks. The Crimson Tide signed the Nation's 5th ranked recruiting class with 5 of the Top 50 players in the class.
Auburn may just be harder to gauge at this point as they recruited well under Hugh Freeze, but with the coaching change their recruiting class took some hits while the Transfer Portal class is mostly made up of Alex Golesh's former players.
The biggest issue for some of these teams and head coaches is the way that they have to go about building their rosters. For programs who don't have a Cody Campbell or Curt Cignetti backing them, having to go to boosters and ask for more money on a yearly basis has to get old. Going back for additional funding or to give a player a new deal after a team or the star underperforms has to draw criticism especially if the boosters already gave a player a big deal.
How the sport continues to evolve each year is going to be fascinating to see as we're still in the early years of this all. After watching Texas Tech and Indiana this season, it's only more likely that we start to see teams fully invest into the NIL game.