It’s nearly impossible to have a conversation with a college football staffer without the escalating costs of talent acquisition coming up.

We’re less than two years removed from Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork shocking us all — or most of us — when he revealed the Buckeyes spent $20 million on their football roster.

That was only the beginning.

“The new number in our sport right now is $40 million,” an SEC head coach told The Athletic recently. “That’s for the ’26 season. What’s it going to be for the ’27 season? I don’t know, I think if you’re at $40 million this year, I bet you’ll be at $45 million next year.”

“It’s getting up to $35 million-plus, if not $40 million-plus,” said a Big Ten personnel staffer.

A logical response might be: What do you mean by $40 million? I thought there was a revenue-share cap of $20.5 million for student-athletes across all sports?

Well, that rev-share cap was always more of a wholesome wish than an enforceable action.

Spending doesn’t guarantee your program will turn into a winner overnight, but it sure does help. Just look at Indiana and Texas Tech, which have invested at unprecedented levels and have won at … well, unprecedented levels.

Winning is expensive, but the alternative costs a lot more.

“Losing is the most expensive element of our sport,” a Pac-12 assistant coach said. “Winning is far less expensive than losing. Losing, there’s no return on investment. Winning is huge.”

Lose long enough and your fans become apathetic. Attendance sags, donors stop giving money, the environment gets toxic and recruiting becomes difficult. Florida State, which has sputtered under coach Mike Norvell the past two seasons, is dealing with this predicament.

“The more people see that’s the pathway to winning,” the Pac-12 assistant said, “it’s only going to become more intense.”

That’s not to mention that college football is resembling the NFL more and more each day — even though that’s a turnoff for some. In the NFL, players reset the market all the time.

Seattle’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba just became the highest-paid receiver (annually) in the NFL with a four-year $168.6 million extension. The Rams made Trent McDuffie the highest-paid corner in the league earlier this month. It feels like a different quarterback resets the market at that position every offseason.

It would be foolish not to expect the same to happen in college football. Nico Iamaleava caused a major commotion when he signed an NIL deal with Tennessee that could’ve paid him more than $8 million by the end of his junior year. Now, high-end transfer quarterbacks are earning more than $4 million per season.

Top transfer offensive tackles were receiving around $1.3 million, but when Colorado’s Jordan Seaton — a former five-star recruit — entered the transfer portal in January, he was expected to earn anywhere between $2 million and $3 million. Seaton landed at LSU, which was an aggressive spender this offseason.

“Our joking motto is ‘Double it,’” the Big Ten personnel staffer said. “Which is what we say every cycle. It’s like whatever you hear, double it. That’s just what it’s going to end up being for a lot of these kids. Whatever we end up paying for this type of kid, next cycle you’re going to have to double it. Trying to compare it to what it was even a year ago at this time is completely different.”

“The more information, the more the market will go up,” a Group of 6 general manager said. “We all think we’re better than what we are, so everybody will look at the market and say, ‘The best quarterback in college football made X amount of money. I’m better than that. I deserve more.’ Even if they aren’t better than that, if they believe that and put themselves out there in the open market, somebody is going to pay a hefty price for it.”

And lastly, but probably most significantly: There are no rules. Sure, the College Sports Commission was set up to oversee NIL compliance, but it seems ill-prepared to handle the sheer volume of deals it is being asked to approve.

With no real cap in place and no legislation, there’s no reason to believe the numbers will slow down.

“There’s nothing that can truly hold everyone back right now,” the G6 GM said. “I think it’s going to continuously go up each year. That’s not going to change unless there’s a drastic regulation change.”

So don’t be shocked by the figures that you hear after next season when the January portal window opens. Just hope your favorite team has the means to spend — and it does so wisely.

“You’re spending money, but you still have to spend money on the right guys,” a Big 12 assistant coach said. “The Dodgers spend a ton of money, but they can also spend it on the wrong guys, and you’re the Mets.”