College football recruiting has seen its landscape drastically change in the last few years. Between high school recruits, the transfer portal, junior college players, and NIL deals, there are endless items to navigate.
One thing that doesn’t change, though, is that recruiting costs a significant amount and is only increasing in its price. USA TODAY Sports dove into the most recent recruiting expenditures of each Big Ten team and their averages from 2017-2022. The Big Ten saw every single team spend more in 2022 than their 2017-2022 average which highlights the cost of success.
The Iowa Hawkeyes seem to make their dollar go the furthest of any school in the conference. Iowa has sustained success since 2017 with eight wins each year aside from the COVID-shortened 2020 season where they finished 6-2.
The Hawkeyes have done so while ranking near the bottom nationally among Power 5 programs in terms of money spent on average from 2017-2022. Iowa spent the least on recruiting in 2022 among Big Ten schools that USA TODAY Sports could obtain financial reports for.
Here is a look at where Iowa sits and the spending from the other schools in the Big Ten. Northwestern is not included as their numbers are not reported.