A certainty for the '25 season is it will not be Alabama Football buying a championship

Has it become so expensive to win at college football that only the big spenders can win a championship? An answer may come in 2025. Alabama Football will not be one of the biggest spenders, and apparently, neither will the Georgia Bulldogs. At least 10 other programs will spend more than the Crimson Tide. In some cases, much more.

Player payrolls at the top end of the college football pyramid are expected to range from around $18M to as much as twice that amount. For the programs on the lower side of the 'top end,' most of the money will come from revenue sharing. For a few programs, NIL will provide more cash than revenue sharing.

The best source to date on the top college football 2025 payrolls is On3's Pete Nakos. Nakos surveyed more than a dozen sources with inside knowledge and compiled a list of the top 10, 2025 payrolls.

Nakos also tweeted that the player payroll budget for the Texas Red Raiders football team will be "north of $28M." Based on the top 10 list from Nakos, the Texas Longhorns are spending more than the Red Raiders.

After it was reported that Texas Tech gained a commitment from 5-star offensive tackle, Felix Ojo, with a 3-year guaranteed deal totaling $5.1M, other Big 12 coaches gave responses. As reported by a trio of writers for The Athletic, one coach said the Texas Tech roster "is making 10 times more (in NIL money) than his team." The coach added, "I don't know what to believe. I don't even know how it's possible. Those are big numbers. There will be a lot of young men taking pay cuts when they get done playing college football."

Claims Alabama Football Bought Championships

Alabama football fans will remember that every National Championship the Crimson Tide won under Nick Saban was claimed to have been bought. It might not be a coincidence that last season's National Champion, the Ohio State Buckeyes, are widely believed to have had the highest player payroll budget.

If Alabama wins it all next January, it will not be because the Crimson Tide bought the championship. Alabama Football is not a poverty program. Neither is it often a 'highest-bidder' program. Despite the current budget-busting frenzy, there is a good chance that in the 2025 season, money will not decide the champion.

Perhaps in college football, money will never be the deciding factor. That can't be known yet because so much has changed. For perspective, consider Texas Tech. The Red Raiders have won more than nine games in a season one time since 1976. Last season, Texas Tech finished 8-5 after losing the Liberty Bowl. The only real run of modest success in Lubbock was in the 10 seasons Mike Leach was the coach. That ended in 2009.

Can money bring the Red Raiders national championship contention? And if it brings a championship, how does the rest of college football respond?

Note: Texas Tech team records provided by Sports Reference