AMES – Jared Benko doesn't take office until Oct. 30, but he wasn't afraid to set expectations for himself and Iowa State before he officially takes over as the Cyclones' new athletics director.

"Winning does matter; we're going to compete for Big 12 championships and national championships," Benko said at his Oct. 19 introductory press conference. "I won't apologize for setting the bar high. Our student-athletes deserve that expectation, our coaches deserve the resources and the support to pursue that. Cyclone fans should expect us to wake up every single day looking for ways to get better and build high-performing teams."

One of Benko's top objectives as Iowa State's AD is to remove roadblocks and set up coaches and players for success.

How can he do that?

"Money. That's what this is, this is a money game," Iowa State football coach Jimmy Rogers said Oct. 20 during his weekly press conference. "High school recruits are asking about this, and they all have agents. We know who to evaluate. I believe in our evaluation of talent, it's going after that kid and having that kid hear us out because we're close to a number that he's receiving at other schools that are in this conference or outside, and we have to be remotely close to how we recruit a high school player to how we recruit a transfer player.

"At the end of the day, do I want a player that's only coming here for money? Absolutely not, and I'll be the judge of that type of person."

Recruiting has become a lot more convoluted. Player retention is another challenge in itself.

"If you have representation like a lot of players would and you're 'X' amount of dollars away, your representation would say, 'Ah, let's go in this direction,'" Rogers said. "It used to be the player was the one that you were only talking to, and maybe his family, so they had a better insight of who you were as a human being and what type of program you were going to lead and the structure that their son would be in or the player would be in. Nowadays, you have somebody in the back of their ear saying 'Well ...' and that's their job. Their job is to make the most money for the players so they can get a bigger cut. Are they really looking for the best fit for the player? I would say they're not, not all the time."

While fans, coaches and observers of college athletics have called for regulation and structure, a bona fide solution seems distant.

The much-discussed Protect College Sports Act has pros and cons. It may put rules and safeguards in place if passed, but it still sits in the House of Representatives after being passed through the Senate. With midterm elections coming up, it's possible that gets tabled for at least a few months.

Rogers supports players getting compensation for their value, but he would also like to see more structure or an NIL cap of sorts. The unregulated nature of college sports creates "chaos," he said.

"I said this last year, we live in a model, it's broken and this is why it's broken – you could be average, you could not do anything and demand more money, and somebody's willing to pay it," Rogers said. "Maybe from what school that you came from or because they have it ...

"... I think that nowadays there's more parity in football. I wouldn't argue that, but there can still be parity with a normal cap, though, because ultimately the thing that should be the most important is playing time and what school gives the best opportunity where I can highlight my skill to chase the NFL, not make a dollar in college as a backup.

"... It used to be about making the NFL. It used to be about development, to believe and be the best version of themselves. It's my job to guard this program and make sure that we're getting guys that love football that are committed to the work that goes into football, and to develop the guys that we have in this program and not get caught up in all this BS that we're surrounded with."

Benko applauded the work his predecessor Jamie Pollard did and the success Iowa State has had managing money. It'll be his job to help Iowa State make more of it and foster multiple healthy revenue streams. Generate more revenue, which in turn also creates more resources for the recruiting trail.

Benko comes to Ames with a strong financial background. He negotiated a 10-year, $230 million multimedia rights deal with Playfly at Auburn. He also was in charge of NIL, revenue sharing and generation, among other responsibilities, and oversaw the daily operations for a $228 million athletics department.

He also set fundraising records as an athletics director at Georgia Southern from 2020-24, and he previously served as Mississippi State's deputy athletics director and chief financial officer (CFO) for four years.

"I think president (David) Cook knocked it out of the park, which was finding somebody that has been kind of engulfed in this new world and this new landscape," Rogers said of Benko. "Being at an SEC school and having the people to rely on back at Auburn and just his experience overall I think is really impressive. It's a necessity right now in college football, it's a necessity here to build the team that we want to build."

Money won't be a magic elixir for national championships, conference titles and gaining blue-chip recruits, but it'll certainly help build a highly competitive roster in this ever-changing college sports landscape.

According to a September 2026 report by The Athletic, which gathered data from surveying various power-conference coaches, general managers, athletic directors, agents and more, Iowa State is spending an estimated $13-17 million on the 2026 football roster.

That estimate is closer to the bottom end of power-conference teams. Boston College, which is spending an estimated $8-13 million, is in last place.

In the Big 12, Iowa State ranks only above Cincinnati in roster spending. The reported average spending of a Big 12 football team is $20-22 million.

It's no coincidence that many of the teams ranked in the top 15 of the AP and Coaches polls are also some of the heavier spenders among all college football teams.

It's just the nature of the landscape right now. Rogers isn't asking for Cody Campbell-esque oil tycoon money like Texas Tech, but if Benko can help Iowa State get close to the average ...

"At the end of the day, I thoroughly enjoy this football team, they're low-ego, they work (hard) and they're a pleasure to be around, and I'm thankful for the new leadership that's coming in that has insight on really what we need to become and be competitive," Rogers said. "It's our job to make sure that the product that we put on the field, once we match in resources very similar, that we can beat the teams, because if it comes down to coaching and it comes down to personnel that we put on the field, after we're even or close to get us in the ballpark, I'm very confident what we can do here and that's not arrogance. It's just a belief in myself and more so this coaching staff and the players that will come into this building."