Bluest blood or fattest wallet: What makes a coaching job desirable?

Hope everyone is having a good week.

In today’s piece, you’ll hear from a handful of people across the world of college football about what makes a coaching job desirable. Since 2021, that definition has undergone a radical makeover. History has never mattered less, and investment — cold, hard cash — is what everyone talks about when they explain why they’ve bolted from, say, Tampa to east-central Alabama. Sure, some jobs will always be coveted. But in this piece, you’ll hear from coaches whose words and experiences can help explain why good jobs exist at places we might never have imagined them just a few years ago.

Read on, and please subscribe to access the complete story, full of reporting you can only find here at NIL Wire.

— Kyle

Bluest blood or fattest wallet: What makes a coaching job desirable?

There used to be a simple rubric for grading college football coaching jobs. You looked at the helmet. You listened to the fight song. You checked the trophy case for dust.

The logic was foolproof. The bluer the blood, the safer the job. Tradition didn’t just talk; it sold itself.

Not anymore. In 2026, history is a luxury, not a necessity. 

Ohio State, Michigan and Alabama will always matter. Those jobs will remain coveted. But now, at most other places, the job evaluation happens far away from stadium. It’s about the size of an NIL war chest, the depth of donor pockets, whether oil flows freely in the state or if an alum founded Nike. 

These factors matter as much as national championships won when players wore leather helmets or World War II raged. In some cases, they matter more.

College football has crossed a line. Money isn’t an edge; it’s the foundation. Talent acquisition and retention dominate every conversation, from message boards to booster meetings to coaching interviews. Scheme and development still matter. But neither survives without resources.

Everyone knows it. Coaches, athletic directors, players and recruits. Which is why it’s part of the interview process — with ADs and the media. 

“The investment that has been made from the administration to go and attack every single part of the recruiting is phenomenal,” Alex Golesh said after leaving South Florida for Auburn. “We’ve got every resource known to man right here to be able to go attract, recruit, retain and develop the best talent there is in the entire country.”

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