Bret Bielema says unnamed college football programs are spending 'insanity' NIL money to win championships

With a huge leap this past season that saw Illinois clinch its first 10-win year since 2001, coach Bret Bielema has begun recognizing how eye-opening the NIL space has become.

In an exclusive interview with Big Ten Radio on SiriusXM, Bielema peeled back the curtain on the hurdles Illinois has had to deal with regarding player retention, much less utilizing the transfer portal to remain productive this offseason.

Both goals paid off considerably. Bielema kept his quarterback, Luke Altmyer, and was able to find replacements for wide receiver Pat Bryant, alongside rebuilding a defense in his image by returning to familiar roots: the Wisconsin Badgers.

Instead of gutting the entire team, Bielema's team got older, more experienced and arguably playoff-ready.

"You're going to see teams this year in college football — just because I know the landscape that I'm dealing with — that are probably in the neighborhood of 30-35, maybe even some of them close to $40 million rosters, which is insanity at its best, but it's also awesome for our kids," Bielema said.

Bielema revealed Illinois' budget, which is a far cry from what some other Big Ten programs (which Bielema was tight-lipped about) are willing to spend.

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"Last year, we finished fifth in our 18-team conference," Bielema added. "We had about a $5 million pool that we were working off of, but the four teams ahead of us, I think, were north of $20 million. You can pull that off once in a while, but to pull that off year in and year out is just not in the deck of cards that we're dealt."

Bielema isn't upset about the discrepancy but said he believes that the playing field should be level, especially if the budgets eventually become the same.

"Whether we're all shopping at Walmart or Louis Vuitton, as long as we're all shopping in the same mall, I can live with that," Bielema said. "But we have to be able to have some type of parameters to make sure that makes it consistent for everybody."

As far as the upcoming season is concerned, Illinois' home opener against Western Illinois was moved to Friday, Aug. 29. Critical games to earmark include USC and Ohio State, as a College Football Playoff berth is in the realm of possibility if the cards fall where they should.

Bielema begins his fifth season in Champaign, having gone to two postseason bowl games thus far as he led Illinois to a 21-17 win this past December against South Carolina to close out a five-game improvement from 2023.

Whether Bielema is justified in his NIL stance, it's clear he wants transparency to help better the program long-term.