re: "LSU's recruiting budget balloons over a decade"

Blurb "articles" such as this are often misleading. If the entire SEC spent 13.1 million, that is an average of 1.09 million per team, which is slightly more than the 994,000 LSU spent. Additionally, it is unlikely that schools such as Vanderbilt (no insult intended) are spending the same type of money. This likely means that other top SEC schools are spending much MORE than LSU. So instead of giving the impression that spending increases at LSU are "ballooning", a more in depth analysis is likey to reveal that LSU actually spends LESS than other top conference schools and the increase is part of a much larger national trend.

Lastly as another poster most wisely pointed out, "spending money to make money". BCS bowls do payout much more $$$$.