CFB insider delivers verdict on Ohio State amid accusations of buying a National Championship

In the shadows of conquering the first twelve-team College Football Playoff, analysts and fans have criticized Ohio State for buying a national championship. Is Ohio State's financial largesse responsible for the school's playoff win? Is it even possible to buy a national championship in this era of college athletics?

According to coaching legend Nick Saban, Ohio State's roster was a "$20 million roster," and Saban certainly had strong opinions about roster construction in this environment.

On3 Sports contributor J.D. Pickell, a former college football player, says that this mentality may be "copium." Pickell's verdict on the matter was that the alleged $20 million price tag for this deep, talented championship roster might just be the "price of admission" moving forward. He took to X to share:

"Seeing a lot of people shouting that Ohio State 'bought' their national title like their school didn't spend north of $50M on a facelift for their athletic facility to help in recruiting. If it was $20M, that's money well spent."

According to Pickell, the idea of using resources as a competitive advantage in college football is nothing new. Before NIL, programs competed against each other for the best talent in ways other than arranging for direct payments and financial incentive contracts.

The top programs built lavish, massive facilities on their campuses to attract elite talent from the prep and portal ranks. According to 247 Sports, these are some of the more lavish perks of the top facilities:

• Illinois has a barbershop called "Littyville Cutz" in the Betty and Lou Smith Center.
• Alabama has dedicated cryotherapy spaces in its Mal M. Moore Athletic facility.
• Oregon's $68 million facilities have self-cleaning lockers and Ferrari leather chairs.
• Georgia's $80 million upgrade included a plunge pool and a sensory deprivation tank.
• The Woody Hayes Athletic Center at The Ohio State University has a basketball court, sleep pods, and an arcade.

This underscores Pickell's point that the arms race for the best talent preceded legal payments. Programs solicited massive donations to modernize their facilities and compete in the most lucrative football landscape in the sport's history.

CFB insider highlights the importance of the transfer portal and player retention in Ohio State's success

Pickell also made the point that transfer portal success is as much of a determining factor as any in constructing a championship roster. And that takes as much judgment as it does money.

"There were four major portal players that Ohio State got. Three (Will Howard, Caleb Downs, Quinshon Judkins) made the most massive impact on what they did this season."

Pickell makes the point that NIL is even more valuable in retention than it is in acquisition. Ohio State was able to keep a lot of its top players for another year.

"The amount they spent to keep a lot of these guys (J.T. Tuimoloao, Cody Simon, Jack Sawyer) home, I would have to believe is a much larger portion than what they spent in the transfer portal.

"We've always been in the business of spending a lot of money to try and attract top talent. The world we live in now is such that you can take some of that money you would have spent to buy a nice waterfall for your team...and now you can grab yourself a top safety, a top quarterback..."

In the end, it's resource allocation more than the resource amount that determines how to build a successful program.