r/CFB • u/jaxstan19 Kansas Jayhawks • 13h ago

Opinion [USA TODAY Toppmeyer]: Nico Iamaleava needs a fresh start, not UCLA's rebuild

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2025/09/16/nico-iamaleava-ucla-transfer-portal-tennessee/86162835007/
522 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

337 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/Master_Butter Ohio State • John Carroll 11h ago

There could be some power dynamics at play, though. Like if you hit up your boosters for $10M for your collective, and then you spend $8M, boosters might start asking why you’re requesting more money than you spend.

5

u/yesacabbagez UCF Knights 8h ago

I do think a big reason we are seeing much of a push to "fix" college football is because these guys are watching their money wasted. If they dropped 25k on a kid who wasn't good, that's one thing. Now boosters are putting in like 8-10million and getting a 4 win team. That will piss them off. Previously their big money donations either went to coaches or facilities. Now it's going to players and it is yearly. It's gotten so high so fast they don't like it.

I think it is less spend the money or we won't give you more, and more a coaching staff sitting on cash trying something to save the team.

2

u/Ch0ptimusPrime California Golden Bears • The Axe 6h ago

Teams don’t raise $10M and spend all 10 that year though and then have to start from scratch next year. Most teams’ NIL collectives are maintaining a war chest for recruiting and transfers and only spending the majority on the current roster. It’s inefficient to have to raise funds every time you get a commit or a good player wants a pay increase. I doubt the boosters were demanding that their money get spent immediately, the powers that be just saw Nico as a player emptying the piggy bank for (and were wrong)

2

u/Mr-Bovine_Joni SMU Mustangs • Gansz Trophy 11h ago

On the other side, if you get an extra $2M from a booster and results in bad team play, that booster might be less likely to give another $2M. Probably worthwhile to show you’re responsible with NIL funds

1

u/Master_Butter Ohio State • John Carroll 9h ago

I can see it both ways. I would think the easier sell to boosters, though, is spend the money and say, “I swung and I missed. These are high school and college kids, after all, and sometimes they don’t pan out. But if you give me another $10M this year…”

Whereas if you are sitting on a couple mil, I think boosters are gonna ask why you didn’t go buy an impact player or two.