College

Introducing The Cap Dollars By College Page

Which college alumni are earning the most in the NFL?

Today is the first Saturday of the 2017 college football season, and as a honor to this, I decided to put together a fairly simple page that breaks down cap spending by college. For those of you that have a rooting interest in a college team, you may find it interesting to see how well your school’s best football alumni are doing on NFL financial grounds.

The Cap Dollars By College page contains four views: by all colleges overall, breakdowns by team, and breakdowns by conference. Although there may be some further changes as final 53-player rosters are cut down today, I thought it’d be interesting to take a look at the current standings as the 2017 NFL regular season approaches. If there are significant changes, I’ll update these results accordingly.

Top 25 Overall Colleges By Cap Dollars

Rk.	College	#	Cap Dollars
1	Georgia	43	$150,685,656
2	USC	49	$148,138,654
3	Alabama	52	$138,375,869
4	LSU	59	$131,395,194
5	California	36	$130,977,279
6	Miami	49	$124,293,092
7	Ohio State	48	$112,657,212
8	Oklahoma	36	$111,096,134
9	Florida	53	$107,587,634
10	Texas A&M	37	$98,918,954
11	Stanford	34	$97,016,084
12	Wisconsin	35	$95,419,878
13	Florida State	48	$91,835,919
14	Michigan State	31	$85,196,782
15	Tennessee	35	$81,072,442
16	South Carolina	28	$80,934,113
17	Clemson	42	$78,997,978
18	Oregon	35	$74,723,459
19	Texas	33	$74,664,224
20	Iowa	29	$72,778,574
21	Utah	36	$70,564,002
22	Penn State	33	$66,354,760
23	Nebraska	31	$65,754,079
24	Mississippi	31	$64,104,808
25	Notre Dame	35	$63,965,369

You might think that Matt Stafford’s recent extension pushed Georgia to the top, but remember that his 2017 cap number was unchanged, still at $16.5 million. Stafford, in fact, doesn’t have the highest cap number among Bulldogs–that goes to Justin Houston at $22.1 million. Cordy Glenn, AJ Green, Geno Atkins, and Thomas Davis are the other Bulldogs with eight figure cap numbers.

Miami is a bit of a surprise to see at #6, as all of the players from the glory days around the turn of the millennium are now out of the league with Vince Wilfork’s recent retirement. But Brandon Linder’s recent extension gives the Hurricanes five alumni with eight figure cap numbers. The other four are a pair of defensive linemen in Olivier Vernon and Calais Campbell, and a pair of tight ends in Greg Olsen and Jimmy Graham.

Some schools, like Ohio State and Florida State, have relatively even distribution among their highly-paid alumni. Other schools are top heavy with one or two alumni boosting them to the Top 25. Nebraska and Ole Miss are two excellent examples barely making the Top 25 due to the massive cap hits from Ndamukong Suh ($19.1 million) and Eli Manning ($19.7 million). Some of these schools may be on the verge of falling down the list quickly in the future. For example, Utah’s top two alumni are Alex Smith ($16.9 million) and Sean Smith ($9.5 million), but many feel that 2017 may be the last year both of them can get paid at that level. Losing $26.4 million in cap dollars would send the Utes tumbling down the charts if that does happen.

Each NFL Team’s College With The Highest Cap Spending

Team	College	Cap Dollars
Bengals	Georgia	$33,059,375
Cardinals	USC	$25,205,000
Ravens	Delaware	$25,204,118
Texans	Clemson	$24,960,254
Redskins	Michigan State	$24,563,323
Falcons	Boston College	$24,365,000
Chiefs	Georgia	$24,243,109
Giants	Mississippi	$23,398,826
Packers	California	$22,820,298
Steelers	Florida	$21,991,166
Broncos	Kansas	$21,866,666
Patriots	Michigan	$21,468,750
Cowboys	Oklahoma State	$21,465,000
Browns	Wisconsin	$21,063,489
Colts	Stanford	$20,852,921
Jaguars	Miami	$20,852,921
Panthers	Auburn	$20,822,563
Dolphins	Texas A&M	$20,300,000
Rams	LSU	$20,166,666
Seahawks	Wisconsin	$20,030,000
Chargers	North Carolina State	$20,000,000
Buccaneers	California	$19,375,000
Jets	Temple	$19,008,333
Saints	Purdue	$19,000,000
Lions	Georgia	$18,837,500
Bears	North Carolina State	$18,100,000
Vikings	Oklahoma	$18,000,000
Bills	Alabama	$16,574,804
Titans	USC	$16,555,207
Raiders	Fresno State	$15,731,691
49ers	Penn State	$13,504,000
Eagles	Cincinnati	$10,200,000

This list contains more variety than the Top 25 overall list does, and most of the variety comes from veteran quarterbacks dominating their team’s cap. Teams where this sticks out like a sore thumb are the Ravens (Joe Flacco of Delaware), Redskins (Kirk Cousins of Michigan State on his second franchise tag), and Saints (Drew Brees of Purdue).

On the other end, a few teams without a highly paid quarterback also show some oddities. Kansas, a team that’s regularly a bottom feeder in the Big 12, gets the top billing for the Broncos due to the presence of Pro Bowl cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Chris Harris, Jr. Temple also shows up for the Jets thanks to Muhammad Wilkerson’s recent extension.

As for the overall top ranked Georgia, they make the list several times both with a high paid quarrterback (Stafford on the Lions), and multiple non-quarterbacks (Green and Atkins on the Bengals).

Division I-A Conference Rankings

Conference	Cap Dollars	Top College	Bottom College
SEC	$1,105,414,831	Georgia	Vanderbilt
Big Ten	$776,730,639	Ohio State	Indiana
Pac-12	$763,388,132	USC	Washington State
ACC	$726,476,315	Miami	Wake Forest
Big 12	$447,768,836	Oklahoma	Baylor
The American	$287,818,399	Central Florida	Navy
Mountain West	$185,957,269	Boise State	Air Force
Mid-American	$170,925,631	Central Michigan	Bowling Green
Conference USA	$139,219,431	Southern Miss	Charlotte
Sun Belt	$95,036,626	Coastal Carolina	Louisiana-Monroe
Independent	$92,642,834	Notre Dame	Army

The SEC has long bragged about being the best conference in college football, and when it comes to cap spending on its alumni in the NFL, their bragging is justified. The SEC is the only conference in the NFL that breaks the $1 billion mark in cap spending.

The split between the Power 5 and Group of 5/independent schools also shows up. Boise State is the highest ranked Group of 5 school, but overall they only come in at #37. Within conferences, you can also see how blue bloods are regularly the top team in the conference, while service academies and regular bottom feeders show up on the bottom.

Finally, as of today every Division I-A school has at least one player on an NFL roster. We’ll have to see if that holds up by 4 PM Eastern time today.