Of all the history and tradition marginalized by big-time expansion and television deals in college football, none has been more surprising than the one thing that was seemingly untouchable.
The almighty dollar.
More specifically, the ability of money to separate elite programs from those chasing.
"Everyone has financially strength now," Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw told me this summer. "It's all a matter of how wisely you manage it."
That's why Art Briles is still the coach at Baylor and not Texas. That's why nearly every heavyweight program hire in recent memory — Brady Hoke, Charlie Strong, Al Golden, Mark Helfrich, Will Muschamp — hasn't been elite coaches moving from one major program to another.
That's why Florida, arguably the top job in all of college football, has turned to Colorado State coach Jim McElwain — a guy who has been a head coach all of three seasons.
And even that pursuit hasn't been easy.
Florida was busy tying up loose ends Wednesday afternoon with a posse from its athletic department in Fort Collins, Colo., scrambling to find a way to land McElwain before Nebraska and Michigan swoop in and change the dynamics of the search.
This is where we are in the game: Money means nothing — because everyone has it, no one is afraid to spend it and anything is possible.
Like Hugh Freeze, one of the game's hot young coaches, getting a $1.5 million a year raise (to $4.5 million annually) from Ole Miss to stay in Oxford and not leave for Florida. He's 24-14 in three years at Ole Miss, and 11-13 in the SEC — and he's now among college football's highest-paid coaches.
Like Dan Mullen, who a year ago had just saved his job with a late season run, soon signing a contract extension at Mississippi State instead of leaving for more prominent jobs at Michigan and Nebraska. You better believe he'll make the same or slightly more than Freeze, and both will be fat and happy with a four-year deal at a place they know, in a job they've built, with people they trust.
When money is even, loyalty and ease of living (see: pressure to win big at powerhouse schools) become top priority.
Even the NFL is feeling the money pinch. According to one industry source, Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin was pursued by multiple NFL teams last December, but instead signed a contract extension through 2019 with the Aggies worth $5 million annually. All that cash for a coach who was then 20-6 in two seasons in the SEC, with third- and fourth-place finishes in the SEC West.
After three years, Sumlin's SEC record stands at 13-11 and he has added a sixth-place finish in the West to his resume — and he's among the five highest-paid coaches in all of college football.
McElwain will arrive at Florida with SEC credentials; he was offensive coordinator at Alabama and coached under the game's best, Nick Saban — and won two national titles in four seasons. He might just be worth all that cash.
Then again, Muschamp coached under Saban and won a national title at LSU — and look where that got the Gators.
Smart money or dumb money, it doesn't matter. Coaching hires are a crapshoot.
That's the one thing that will never be marginalized.