The recruiting trip that helped Texas land Arch Manning sounds unbelievable, especially to Mississippi State coach Mike Leach.
The Mississippi State head coach acknowledged that he, too, read
that, through open record requests, found that the mid-June weekend in which Texas hosted Manning and eight other recruits cost more than a quarter-million dollars.Getty Images But even with expenses that included airfare and car service, hotel rooms, a $17,000 lunch buffet and $29,000 dinner buffet and everything from ice sculptures to open bars for parents, Leach cannot fathom a recruiting visit costing $280,000.said on his radio show
on Thursday. “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 said. “… 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.”According to the records pulled by The Athletic, Texas spent nearly $47,000 on 34 hotel rooms in Austin for recruits, family members and some coaches and staffers.