Finding the correct benefit is key to figuring out what the player should receive. You also need to look at the downsides for the player, such as: health issues (don't know a single football player that doesn't have some sort of long-term health issue), requirement of 40 plus hours a week on football (makes it hard to study when you have a full-time job - tutors mitigate this a little bit, but there is a reason football players load up in the spring), miss significant class time due to sports, all issues become public (a star may get good and bad press, but a role player only gets mentioned for the negative), etc.

Utah and BYU also struggle because they don't have the resources to compete with Texas, Ohio State, Florida, etc, but will need to match whatever those schools provide. It is much easier for the big boy's to afford a 10K stipend for all athletes. A 2.5 million dollar payment (assuming 250 athletes), is not much if your revenue is 100 million plus, but could be the entire profit for BYU and Utah.