Recruiting budgets

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SEC Recruiting Budgets

SEC football recruiting budgets

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February 6, 2007

2006-07 SEC FOOTBALL RECRUITING BUDGETS

1. Tennessee: $900,000

2. Arkansas: $659,676

3. Auburn: $535,000

4. LSU: $510,000

5. Florida: $500,000

6. Georgia: $485,000

7. Ole Miss: $375,000

8. Kentucky: $350,000

9. South Carolina: $253,500

10. Mississippi State: $210,000

2005-06 SEC FOOTBALL RECRUITING BUDGETS

1. Tennessee: $1,071,263

2. Arkansas: $586,893

3. LSU: $510,000

4. Georgia: $48 5,000

5. Auburn: $455,000

6. Florida: $420,000

7. Kentucky: $350,000

8. Ole Miss: $340,000

9. South Carolina: $248,585

10. Mississippi State: $210,000

Memphis Commercial Appeal

OXFORD, Miss. -- Anyone who happened to pass through Louisiana last May stood a reasonable chance of bumping into Ole Miss running backs coach Frank Wilson.

Where was Wilson? He was in Marrero and New Orleans, Pointe Coupee and Shreveport, River Ridge and Baton Rouge. He was in big cities and tiny parishes, on the Gulf Coast and along the Arkansas border. By the end of the month, he had covered 3,540 miles, visited 51 communities and accumulated $2,487.41 in recruiting-related expenses.

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When the national signing period begins Wednesday, Ole Miss is expected to secure commitments from roughly 25 high school seniors and junior college students -- the final act of a grueling 12-month process that entailed thousands of miles, thousands of hours and thousands of dollars.

"I feel that we have a very hard-working staff," coach Ed Orgeron said, "and we're very efficient in the way we do things."

In response to a public records request by The Commercial Appeal, Ole Miss released more than 200 pages of expense reports that detail the coaching staff's travel itineraries throughout 2006, and these figures were used to piece together a timeline that can be found at commercialappeal.com. In addition to showing how Orgeron allocates his staff's time and the program's $375,000 recruiting budget, the financial records help illustrate the effort that goes into assembling a recruiting class at an SEC program. It is, by any measure, a demanding and competitive process.

"When you're out there, it's 24/7," said Pete Cordelli, a former assistant coach at Arkansas and Notre Dame who now provides color commentary for Ole Miss' radio broadcasts.

There are certain months -- January, May, November and December, in particular -- when the NCAA permits coaches to evaluate and/or contact prospective students, and these are periods of intense activity.

Take May 3, for example, when Wilson was busy negotiating the backroads of Louisiana. That same morning, wide receivers coach Matt Lubick, who has since taken a position at Arizona State, was in the early stages of a three-week recruiting trip to Florida, where he would spend $5,968.48, records show. Offensive line coach Art Kehoe was evaluating players in Bradenton, Fla. Tony Hughes, the team's assistant defensive backs coach, was in the middle of a two-week, 2,630-mile expedition through Mississippi. And Orgeron was aboard a charter flight en route to Springdale, Ark., where he would meet Hugh Freeze, the team's recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach.

Financial records show the coaching staff used charter flights for recruiting purposes for a total of 20 days over the course of the year, and the coaches typically made those trips group efforts. Last January, four coaches -- Orgeron, Hughes, Kehoe and offensive coordinator Dan Werner -- took a charter flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., then piled into a private plane the next morning for a two-day jaunt to Visalia, Calif., where quarterback Brent Schaeffer was a student at the College of the Sequoias. In November, Kehoe and three other coaches -- Freeze, linebackers coach David Saunders and defensive line coach Ryan Nielsen -- chartered a plane for two days to visit Georgia.

Limiting the use of charter flights, which often cost more than $5,000 apiece, is an effective way of keeping recruiting costs manageable, Ole Miss athletics director Pete Boone said.

"Taking charter planes, those kinds of things -- your spending can jump in a hurry," he said. "That's the main thing we try to watch and talk to the coaches about."

Tennessee, which accrued $1,071,263 in recruiting-related expenses in 2005-06 and has allocated $900,000 for 2006-07, spends roughly five times as much on recruiting as Mississippi State ($210,000 each of the past two years) and nearly three times as much as Ole Miss. The Vols' high-ceilinged budget is all the more remarkable considering that the NCAA, in August 2004, banned schools from providing charter flights to recruits for their on-campus visits. These days, they have to fly commercial.

But while Tennessee's spending might seem extravagant when compared to the rest of the conference -- based on a survey of SEC schools, Arkansas' budget of $659,676 ranks a distant second -- the Vols' recruiting expenses account for a mere 1.2 percent of the athletics department's $73.4 million annual operating budget, according to Tiffany Utsman Carpenter, a spokesperson for the department. In addition, she said, football provides 49 percent of Tennessee's athletics revenue and subsidizes 17 other sports. With that in mind, the importance of coach Phillip Fulmer's recruiting efforts extend far beyond Neyland Stadium.

Boone, who said he and Orgeron talk about recruiting expenses on occasion, believes Ole Miss' recruiting budget is reasonable.

"Generally speaking, our coaches don't spend all the money that's in the budget," he said. "To be honest, in the five years I've been back here at Ole Miss, I've never had a coach ask for more money."

Tennessee appears to cast a wider net than Ole Miss. Players from 24 states, including Hawaii, were on Tennessee's roster last season. Eleven states were represented on Ole Miss' roster, and the coaching staff recruited in 22 states last year.

In fact, Orgeron and his staff spent more time recruiting players in Florida -- a collective 136 days, which accounts for roughly 26 percent of the time they spent recruiting -- than they did in any other state. Lubick spent 63 days in Florida, and Kehoe, who owns a home in Miami, spent 45 days there. Overall, the staff devoted 109 days to Mississippi and also spent considerable time in California (66), Louisiana (57), Georgia (38), Tennessee (35), Alabama (25) and Arkansas (14).

Ole Miss coaches were in Texas for just four days through November, records show. Kehoe visited Canton on April 23, Werner made a brief appearance in the state two days later, and secondary/special teams coach Chris Rippon traveled to Houston for a two-day high school coaches combine in May.

But when quarterback Jevan Snead announced that he intended to transfer from the University of Texas in early December, the coaching staff couldn't get to Texas quickly enough. Werner visited Snead in his hometown of Stephenville on Dec. 8 and 9, then returned three days later via charter flight with Orgeron to meet with Snead's parents, records show. Werner and Orgeron took the same plane south to Austin that afternoon to meet with Snead at the University of Texas. Werner and Orgeron planned to return to Oxford that night, but bad weather kept them in Austin. (Only two hotel rooms were available, so Orgeron and Werner shared a room, and the private plane's two pilots shared the other.)

Ole Miss' methods were effective. Snead signed with Ole Miss later that month.

Boone said Orgeron's reputation as a top-tier recruiter, which he honed as an assistant at Southern California, was one of the main reasons he hired him two years ago.

"He is relentless," Boone said. "He recruits 365 days a year. He's always doing something."

The challenge, of course, is parlaying a solid year of recruiting into a successful season. Orgeron, who agreed to a two-year contract extension last month after coaching the Rebels to a 7-16 record during his first two seasons, will face greater expectations this fall. Coaches can recruit all they want, Cordelli said, but the bottom line is winning.

"Don't confuse activity with achievement," he said.