NOT JUST MONEY.

• Author: Barkin, Dan

Against the odds, Appalachian State University retains a winning football tradition. Are there clues for others in the cash-crazed sport? By Dan Barkin

When Appalachian State University's football team went to College Station, Texas, and beat Texas A&M in September, football fans, analysts and bettors were shocked. A&M was ranked sixth in the nation, and App State is a much smaller school in a less prestigious conference.

It was a big story for a few days, recalling the even more shocking upset of Michigan in 2007, when App State was in an even smaller conference. Making the story even more compelling was that A&M paid App State $1.5 million to entice the Mountaineers to show up; instead of getting an easy win, the Aggies paid to lose on their home field.

The sports world moved on. But I was curious. Usually, teams with deep pockets win against competitors with fewer resources, unless those competitors have figured something out.

Answering the question of what App State has figured out turns out to be important for much of college football, for these are turbulent times. The richest programs are growing richer with new TV money, threatening to relegate the rest to a sideshow.

College football has been dominated by what are called the Power Five conferences: the Southeastern Conference (SEC), including Texas A&M; the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC); the Big Ten; the Pac-12; and the Big 12. App State is in the Sun Belt Conference, one of the five other athletic conferences that play in college football's top division.

In the past 18 months, the tectonic plates of the Power Five have shifted as Texas, Oklahoma, UCLA and USC have switched to the SEC or Big Ten. The aftershocks have rippled everywhere, especially in North Carolina.

The Big Ten and SEC were already taking in hundreds of millions more than the other three Power Five conferences, and distributing more to their members. The gap will get larger as two dominant leagues will have more cash for coaching salaries and swanky facilities for top recruits. Conferences like the ACC, with members including UNC Chapel Hill, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Duke, will struggle to keep up.

And that raises the stakes for ACC schools that have national aspirations in football. Can they remain relevant, or do they have to jump to the SEC or Big Ten? Fans and deep-pocketed boosters expect these football teams to compete for ACC championships and sometimes be Top 25 or even Top 10 programs. How do athletic directors say, "Sorry, we don't have the money to keep up with Alabama?"

A RESORT AT TEXAS A&M

But it may not be all about the money. When App State played Texas A&M, it was playing a much better-funded football program on a much larger campus, with more than

68,000 students to App State's 20,400. Texas A&M spent $36.6 million on football in the year that ended August 2021, according to federal Department of Education reports. App State spent $8.5 million.

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