re: I feel like Maryland could be a sleeping giant in college football

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In today’s NIL world, most colleges are a sleeping giant with enough money

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“We are going to do what is necessary within the rules to compete with anybody. We are not backing down.”

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Billionaire oilman David Miller, chair of the school’s Board of Trustees, told The News it’s a “foundational gift” because there is more to come. He said SMU can compete financially with any school nationwide for players, now and for the foreseeable future. “We’re going to play this game hard,” Miller said. “Whatever it takes, we’re going to play this game hard. ... We don’t talk about donor fatigue around here.” As SMU seeks sustained athletic excellence rather than the proverbial one shining moment, Evans stressed: This gift is only the beginning.


“We’ve got our foot on the gas, but the pedal isn’t all the way down,” Evans said. “Before it’s all said and done, that pedal is going to be full go, brother. We’ve got to go out and get dollars. And we’re going to do everything that we can to compete at the highest level.”

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Austin Elrod, the Houston-based founder of TheLinkU — which provides a suite of NIL-related services to more than 30 athletic departments — said schools nationwide are aggressively seeking above-the-cap dollars to keep pace.

“The need is extreme, and it is urgent,” Elrod told The News.

In 2024, Ohio State’s national title football roster alone cost $20 million. Last season, Texas Tech garnered national attention by fielding a team that cost more than $25 million, leading the Red Raiders to their first CFP berth. And Mit Winter, a Kansas City-based college sports attorney, told The News that $30 million payrolls will be the prerequisite for teams harboring College Football Playoff aspirations in 2026.

The $20.5 million salary cap, Evans said, is the “bare minimum today, brother.”

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SMU’s overarching business strategy
While Evans endorses a hard salary cap in college sports, that’s not the current state of play.

“You have to understand the playground that you’re in and what’s going on across the landscape,” said Evans, who arrived from the University of Maryland in March. “Right now, above-the-cap NIL, we have to play in that space in order to be successful. And so we will do so. When we get the resources that allow us to build out the structure to support the strategy that we have for above-the-cap NIL, these dollars will help out with that.”

Asked if SMU donors will meet the stated goal of an additional $50 million by the end of the year, Evans said: “Hell, yeah, we’ll meet it. We will meet it. I feel confident that we will exceed it. ... We just put our foot on the gas. Man, we’re just getting up there. We’re about 60 miles an hour right now. We’re trying to get to 120.”

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think UVA is the real sleeping giant. Filthy rich alum if they ever decide to get serious about football they could do it.

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Maryland is probably tied with Rutgers as the worst P4 athletics program in the country. What a genius move by BIG to take them!

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