What saddens me about college football is that with a little bit of restraint legislated from the NCAA, many more programs could be like LSU. Instead, they feel compelled to spend enormous sums on things of marginal utility to stay in the rat race with other athletic departments, even if doing so requires tens of millions of dollars they don't have.

The debt is a good point, but I do think salaries are part of the problem. Most schools could shave $5M off personnel salaries and everyone involved would still be rich and many more schools would be close to break even.