Highlights of Texas’ "ridiculous expenditures" during Arch Manning’s official visit

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Per The Athletic‘s Sam Khan Jr., Texas hosted a total of nine recruits (including Manning) the weekend of June 17. All told, the school reportedly spent $280,000. But hey, Manning committed three days later, so maybe it was all worth it.

Even throwing out relatively routine fees like travel, which still cost the school a total of $21,000, these expenditures are absolutely bonkers.



Here are some of the highlights:

Texas hosted recruits at the five-star Four Seasons Austin, the same hotel where Queen Elizabeth II stayed during her visit to Texas in 1991. The swanky hotel oversees Lady Bird Lake, and UT spent nearly $50,000 on these accommodations.

Add in a more than $17,000 lunch buffet when players and their families arrived at the hotel and the cost of stocking each room with snacks, and Texas reportedly spent more than $65,000 before the recruits even stepped on campus.

For dinner the first night of the visit, Texas hosted a buffet at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. That meal included an ice sculpture and cost the school $29,129.40, and that wasn’t even the priciest dinner of the weekend.

The group had a steak dinner at III Forks, an upscale steakhouse just blocks away from the Four Seasons in downtown Austin. Attendees ate enough to get the meat sweats: Forty-six 7-ounce lobsters, 34 bone-in ribeyes, 26 8-ounce filets, 17 New York strips, sea bass, chicken fried lobster, lobster mac and cheese, the list went on.

In total, the bill at the restaurant rang up at $36,900 after fees and a $6,000 gratuity.

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