Texas Longhorns Rank High Among College Football's Biggest Spenders

Spending Big means Nothing without Production on the Football Field

Regardless of whether programs are spending millions of dollars on their roster, if all the money doesn't transform into wins and championships for the program, the investment into the team is all for nothing. And the Texas Longhorns fall into the category of spending big while seeing positive results in production on the field skyrocket.

Since arriving in Austin, Steve Sarkisian has transformed the Longhorns from a disappointing middle-of-the-road team to perennial national championship contenders year after year on the back of high-level recruiting. This has seen Sarkisian sign a top-five recruiting class every year since 2022, with two recruiting classes ranked No. 5 in 2022 and 2024, a No. 3-ranked recruiting class in 2023, which featured the No. 1 player in the country, Arch Manning, and the No. 1 class in the country in 2025.

Aside from the battles along the recruiting trail that Sarkisian and the Longhorns are now winning, Texas is seeing its wins in recruiting transfer over to the football field. In the Longhorns' last year in the Big 12, Texas finished 12-2 with a big victory over Alabama in Tuscaloosa, a conference title, and an appearance in the College Football Playoff Semifinal, signaling a turnaround in the Longhorns program.

And in 2024, the Longhorns picked up right where they left off in their first season in the SEC with a 13-3 record overall and 7-1 in conference play, an appearance in the SEC championship game, and another trip to the College Football Playoff Semifinal after two wins in the College Football Playoffs. Texas showed the college football world that their 2023 season was not just a flash in the pan.

Now the Longhorns walk into the 2025 season with huge championship expectations, the notion of being "big spenders" should not take away anything about the product Texas is putting out on the football field.