Man, it feels good to be a Longhorns fan right now.

The Longhorns are ranked No. 3 in the country going into the Red River Shootout. You can practically smell this team competing for a playoff spot in two months and from there you can almost taste playing for a national championship.

The roster is full of future NFL talent. There are potential first-team All-Big 12 players at quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, offensive line, defensive line, linebacker and in the defensive backfield. If you're keeping score at home, that's every offensive and defensive position on the field.

As a fan, work becomes a little less hard when you've got this kind of team to root for. Food tastes better. Jokes are funnier. Your spouse's nagging is a little less bothersome.

Life is ... just ... better.

Well, let me tell you folks something ... none of this comes free. The dirty little secret in college athletics is that these weekly dopamine hits have always cost lots of money. Before the new NIL era, it sometimes arrived in the form of suitcases full of money, his and hers TransAms or maybe even a new house/tractor/loan/whatever. Hell, sometimes it's as sly as a mom getting a job in a competitive marketplace without a resume and/or lack of experience to warrant such a hire.

In 2023, things are slightly more transparent in this brave new NIL world.

Players get paid. Businesses with connections to athletic departments pay players. Corporations pay them. Mom and pops pay them. Collectives, featuring monthly donations from fine folks like yourselves, pay them. This stuff is fairly transparent.

Have you seen those recent social media videos with Mattress Mack and Kelvin Banks? That's not an accident. Banks has an NIL deal with Mattress Mack.

While Steve Sarkisian and his staff deserve a lot of credit for the job in recruiting that they've done, one could argue that the money made available in NIL - both for recruiting and team retention - deserves even more credit.

Adonai Mitchell didn't just come to Texas to be close to family. Xavier Worthy isn't still on campus because he loves Zilker Park. T'Vondre Sweat didn't come back to Texas for another season when the NFL was calling because he liked playing for free so much that he thought he would do it for one more season. The last commit in recruiting (Brandon Baker) has been quite open about that his decision would be based largely on the NIL opportunities available to him once he arrives on campus.

Honestly, we can go through the entire roster and we'll find NIL fingerprints all over it.

The 2023 Texas football team isn't a fairy tale. It's the product of this brave new NIL world when everything comes together terrifically.

Why am I bringing this up right now? Why not wait until after the OU game to focus on this topic?

Believe me, I gave some consideration to those questions and my answer to both of them is that there isn't a lot of time to waste. This conversation isn't one for the future, it's for right now.

When I reached out to a source this week to ask about players on the current roster that would be eligible for a departure for the NFL that would be on a list of possible key retention targets (see T'Vondre Sweat and Jaylan Ford from last year), one of the first names I asked about was junior defensive tackle Byron Murphy.

"That's the guy," the source said.

"We just need more money. It's that simple. We have to retain more kids than we have ever had to retain," the source continued when asked about the current state of affairs.

The purpose of this section isn't to lecture you. Or shame you. It's designed to educate you on what's happening in what could be argued is the single most important area in the athletic department.

The guys that write six- or seven-figure checks for libraries, weight rooms, coaching buyouts, etc. largely are not participating in these NIL ventures. Also, it's not that the like of Jay Hartzell, Chris Del Conte and Steve Sarkisian aren't trying to recruit these heavy hitters to get in on the much-needed fundraising. That trio has gone all over the nation to meet the most affluent Texas alums on the planet in an effort to enhance UT's NIL revenue streams.

They've mostly been met with head shakes.

Maybe all of the people in the football suites at DKR assume that more help isn't truly needed because their eyes tell them that the situation looks fine without them. Maybe the rich folks feel like they've already given too much. Maybe too many people just don't believe in the idea that athletes should be paid and don't want to contribute to it.

Yet, everyone seems to be enjoying the wins. I haven't heard of any empty suites because people are protesting the way the current team has been built on the shoulders of the ideology they oppose.

The truth of the matter is that those that are carrying all the water have subscribed to the "Field of Dreams" model of NIL building, hoping that if they build it, everyone else will come in afterwards.

Thus far that just hasn't happened. Hell, football wasn't even the No. 1 most supported sport in TexasOne Fundraising until after the Colin Simmons commitment. Seriously. Let the implications of that truth sink in.

It will take millions to retain some of the draft-eligible players on this team. It will take even more millions to retain many of the best non-draft-eligible players on the roster. It takes even more millions to put together a top-5 recruiting class.

This is the cost of those dopamine hits you enjoyed on Saturday.

At the moment, the heavy lifting is being done by a very, very few select people. If this team wins a national championship, those people will deserve statues on campus as much as any of the players will.

The word I continue to receive in my communications with people with knowledge of Texas NIL workings is that the current situation is unsustainable.

Yes, the TexasOne Fund needs more monthly donors, but more than anything else, it needs more heavier investors. It needs more Mattress Macks. It needs them by the dozens.

As you head to the Cotton Bowl on Saturday, keep these truths in mind. None of this is happening just because. There are no accidents. This team that you love so much wasn't created by the NIL Fairy. No one put a wish-list on a piece of paper under their pillow, only to find a pile of money under it the next morning.

It can all go away in an instant if a number of people that you can count on a few fingers were to cry "Uncle!" at any point.

This isn't me lecturing you, it's me warning you.

No. 2 - Let's talk about Dillon Gabriel ...

In my mind, this year's Cotton Bowl is going to come down to ...

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