SEC Recruiting Budgets: Year over year results and spending

By Chris Marler

This morning we wrote about a report from Al.com over the spending habits of SEC football programs when it comes to recruiting. 

The recruiting budgets for SEC teams seemed to take a drastic decline from 2024 to 2025. Of the 15 teams included in the report (everyone but Vanderbilt, who is a private university), a total of $38,560,562 was spent on recruiting budgets in 2025. That’s nearly a ten percent decrease from the year before and $3,568,644 less than the collective spending in the 2024 recruiting cycles. 

Tennessee, Alabama, Texas A&M and Georgia were the top four highest spenders in the 2024 cycle spending over $4 million apiece and Alabama and Tennessee each spending over $5.2 million apiece. All four of those teams still remained in the top six a year later for recruiting budgets, but each spent at least $789,000 less than the previous season with Georgia and Texas A&M spending over a million less than the previous season. 

They weren’t the only ones who cut costs on what used to be considered arguably the most important part of building a program – recruiting. 

Across the SEC ten of the 15 teams included in the report spent less than the previous year. Perhaps the most shocking part of the report was that of the five teams that did spend more than the previous year, four of those teams finished with losing records. 

Here’s a look at the biggest difference in spending from year to year for all 15 SEC teams in the report. 

+/- from last year to this year

1. Auburn: + $862,330
2. Mississippi State: + $529,954
3. Missouri: + $201,852
4. Arkansas: + $83,881
5. Kentucky: +$27,826
6. Florida: – $47,965
7. South Carolina: – $136,448
8. Ole Miss: – $165,728
9. Oklahoma: – $197,977
10. Texas: – $225,607
11. LSU: – $586,603
12. Tennessee: – $789,411
13. Alabama: – $970,292
14. Texas A&M: – $1,043,685
15. Georgia: – $1,111,771