Almost all(and I would actually say all) coaches contracts have it in them that other teams cannot contact them during the season. The other schools just contact their agents. Schools aren't allowed to contact coaches while their coach is under contract either, that's why they hire search firms to do it. Both parties have a way around it and it happens in the NFL as well. You will never get a rule passed that there won't be a way around the contact or you won't get the coaches or schools to sign anything but 1 year deals and that isn't going to happen.
I never buy into the "school A" has such an advantage because they have so much money. Every P5 school has the oppurtunity to have just as much as the other. They all have Alumni and all have wealthy Alumni. It is up to the school to be able to take advantage of getting the Alums to donate so their team can be competitive if that is what the school is missing. Having great coaches is a major key but a bigger one is to have the people to get Alumni on board to get the resources needed to compete. You will never get the NCAA to "limit" the finances of schools. College sports has always been about schools with resources and those that scrape together what they can and it always will be that way. It is up to the schools and their Alumni to get what is needed, not the TV contract or the conference share of money. As stated here all the time the rest of the Big 10 schools are getting XXXX dollars more than RU and you won't be able to compete till you get a full share. Getting a full share is not going to make you any more competitive than you are now because you are still going to be a long ways behind the traditional schools because not only do they have a 50 year jump on you money wise, their donation levels continue to be huge. The conference share money is chump change to what resources these schools have and will continue to have. The bigger athletic departments are sitting on huge slush funds as well as what is donated and the conference revenue. NU's football program, for example, has $150mil(that grows annually) sitting in a slush fund for a rainy day if they need it. If RU wants to close the gap, the conference money isn't even a good starting point. The starting point is the 600,000 Alumni in your region to start writing checks. You can have a staff of Saban, Myer, Harbough, and whoever else you want but until you catch up in a lot of other areas then the top kids will continue to leave the state. It is about bells and whistles a lot more than people think. Look at Oregon, they sucked until Knight started writing facility and staff checks and suddenly they are a major player. Had Okie State ever done much before Pickens? No. Texas under Mack Brown rose up because of getting the Alumni to redo their entire football complex. Texas A&M, the same. Alabama has spent close to $1bil on stadium and facilities at Sabans demand so they could maintain. Nebraska has spent $750mil in the last 5 years on all sports facilities and is now gearing up for another $200mil on the stadium perhaps. They spend $25mil annually on stadium improvements just to make little changes. This year they are replacing the ribbon boards(4 years old) and the 4 corner big screen TV's(5 years old). I guess they are discussing having Jumbo screens above both endzones now instead of just the one on the North and having them both be bigger than current one. There are examples all over college sports about what it takes to be competitive and it is $$$$$$ as you folks have stated.
The $100+mil you folks are trying to raise right now is great but it isn't even a full starting point. Everyone has to keep writing more and more checks. Doing a $1mil weight room redo really didn't close the gap with anybody because most of the bigger schools do that stuff annually which I think you folks will get to but just not with the conference pay, especially funding the number of sports you have and the cost of products there.
The odds are not in you favor but it can be done. Just can't have years like this one because any excitement that was left from entering the Big 10 has been used up know and its almost like the process has to start from scratch. NU has had to rebuild some donor trust after the Pederson/Callahan/Pelini stuff but folks all seem to be going in the same direction now despite some 3 yard punts(Ha). The only problem with getting started and doing new facility stuff is that with every upgrade you have to upgrade everything else to match the new upgrade then match it with an upgrade, ect, ect, ect. It turns into feeding the 900lb gorilla that can't be stopped. Then instead of them saying we need $1000 dollars from ou to keep things going, they say to keep improving things and for you to maintain your seats or donor standing type stuff, they need $10,000. Pay it or you get pushed aside because there is always somebody that will write the check to get their foot in the door. It;s an endless circle that as a fan/donor/booster, you can't win.
