Mississippi State coach Mike Leach questions how Texas spent $280,000 on Arch Manning's visit
STARKVILLE, Miss. — Schools vary in how they treat recruits in town for official visits, but it’s no secret Texas sits on the high end. Especially when it’s a prospect such as Arch Manning, the top quarterback in the upcoming class.
In a mid-June weekend, Texas spent nearly $280,000 on Manning and eight other prospects, according to a report by The Athletic.
The bill featured luxury hotels, open bars for parents and ice sculptures among other amenities.
During his weekly radio show Thursday, Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach was asked how that compares to his recruiting strategy while he coached at Valdosta State. But the show’s host, MSU director of broadcasting Neil Price, figured it was best to ask the question without naming the school.
Leach quickly slipped up.
“I read that article too,” Leach said. “I have a little bit of a hard time believing it. I mean, I don’t know what they would have spent all the money on. If you’re the University of Texas the tougher thing is — oh, we didn’t mention the name did we. But just as an example. It could have been anybody. We have no idea that it was, but let’s say it was.”
He found it hard to believe hotel prices could be so high to accrue to that significant of a total.
“Have you ever been to or heard of rooms that can eat up that much of $280,000? I haven’t,” Leach said. “Let’s make them really expensive. There’s eight recruits, hypothetically. Let’s make those rooms $3,000 a piece. Right there you still haven’t even dented it.”
“I think this is embellished,” he added. “… But I would be curious if someone managed to be creative enough to find a way to spend that much money in that period of time on that number of people. I’d be curious exactly how it was done and what they did. I have some serious, serious, serious doubts about this.”
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mike Leach questions Texas football spending on Arch Manning visit
