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Just like we all expected, the center of the college football universe is unquestionably the UNLV Rebels.

Part of that, of course, is that UNLV is good. They’re 3-0, ranked in the Coaches Poll for the first time ever, have road wins over Houston and Kansas, and have a huge game this weekend against Fresno State. They’re also the cornerstone of the Mountain West Conference, and leveraged the interest of the Pac-12 and others into a larger share of the MWC financial pie.

But the story that seems to have really captured the attention of the college football world isn’t any of that. Earlier this week, Matt Sluka, UNLV’s quarterback, announced he’s redshirting this year and hitting the transfer portal…because he believes UNLV did not follow through with promises surrounding NIL compensation. Specifically, he and his representation believe they had a $100,000 deal for Sluka to transfer to UNLV. The school and their major collective disagree.

After reading everything I could and making calls for the last two hours… I’m less convinced this is the start of a new floodgate of athlete opt-outs, and more a case of several folks making big mistakes. There’s a lot of blame to go around here.

I don’t think Matt Sluka’s agent covered himself in glory

If there is no other takeaway from this entire story, I hope it is this. Verbal offer are not contracts. Contracts are contracts. Don’t do work without getting stuff on paper. I’ve been burned by this principle a few times earlier in my career (both as a journalist and as other stuff), as have countless other folks I know….but we didn’t have the benefit of having an agent. The idea that a professional agent would allow his client to move across the country, enroll in a school and start the season without anything in writing…based only on a verbal agreement from a coach… is craziness. At the very least, that would be terrible, terrible advice.

But that doesn’t appear to be the only mistake made here. For one, Marcus Cromartie, Sluka’s agent, wasn’t actually certified in Nevada. This isn’t that uncommon, as agent certification laws are rarely enforced, but anybody working for an actual agency should know better, especially given who he was working with. Blueprint Sports, the company that operates UNLV’s main NIL collective, was co-founded by a fella named Francisco Aguilar, who now happens to be Nevada’s Secretary of State. You think looking into paperwork might just be a teensy bit more in the DNA of that kind of company, right?

It also appears that Cromartie was unaware of legal changes that would permit athletes to sign NIL paperwork before they actually enroll in college. The regulatory world of NIL changes every week, and I can understand why a much smaller or less experienced agency might decide to err on the side of over-compliance

But Cromartie works for Equity Sports, which isn’t a small agency. They work with athletes like Kareem Hunt, Jerry Jeudy, James Harden, and some dude named Patrick Mahomes, along with several college athletes who have legitimate NFL prospects. Typically, larger agencies focus on clients who are either likely to sign much larger collective deals (think closer to seven figures than six), clients who have marketability beyond bagman-NIL, and clients who they’ll be likely to continue to work with as professionals.

No disrespect to Matt Sluka…but he’s not an NFL prospect or the kind of guy that’s going to appear in the next Dr. Pepper commercial. If everything worked out perfectly for this deal, Cromartie is making what, somewhere between $5-$20K off Sluka’s $100K contract…and that might be the only NIL money Sluka makes the rest of his college career.

Which makes me wonder…why is Equity Sports involved in this kind of deal at all? To me, it seems like this entire episode creates meaningful reputational harm for the agency as they chase bigger names…over limited upside.

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But I don’t think UNLV, or folks acting on behalf of UNLV, did either

Let’s start with this official statement from Blueprint Sports, released on Wednesday:

Let’s set side the work that formal offers may be doing in this statement. As a few other agents and analysts were only too happy to remind me over the last 24 hours…this statement says a few other things, like Our collective did not make any NIL offers to the starting quarterback of a team that is 3-0, beat two P4 squads, and who is ranked in the Coaches Poll for the first time ever. You could choose to read that statement as a commitment to following every regulation by the book…or a tacit admission that we don’t have the money to pay the starting quarterback. How this passage will be perceived by administrators…will be different from how it will be perceived by potential future recruits.

There’s also the matter of the confusion about formal or informal offers. Per Yahoo Sports, 

The lead recruiter for Sluka, according to Cromartie, was UNLV OC Brennan Marion, who Cromartie says agreed to the $100,000 arrangement in December.

I’ve written this several times, but it’s completely ridiculous that a coach, who is not directly affiliated with the entity that will be cutting the checks, would be approving the financial terms of an NIL deal, especially without anything in writing.

So one of three things happened here, in my view. Marion never said anything about money at all, and Cromartie misunderstood something somewhere and let this entire situation get out of control. Marion did promise money, but never spoke to the collective or had any idea how that promise could be guaranteed….or Marion promised the money, knowing full well that was a check that couldn’t be cashed.

UNLV’s athletic department needs to figure out the answer to that question…but even if Marion legitimately never promised any money, there’s no reason for this squabble to be this public, and this exact second.

This is arguably the most important week in the history of UNLV football. They’ve never been ranked. They have an actual path to the College Football Playoff. The football program is in the middle of massively important conference realignment conversations. This is not the week for every national media member to talk about how broke you are!

Honestly, I think you could make a very good argument that even if Marion never promised any money, it would be worth well more than $100,000 in good press and reputational preservation to cut a deal with Sluka and his people anyway.

The fact that UNLV didn’t makes me think that the program really didn’t want to keep the guy, which speaks to problems the team made in recruiting and roster development….or that they flat out didn’t have the money. Maybe it’s a combination of both…but neither are positive signs.

And honestly, lots of other people don’t look great coming out of this either

You’ve got Carl Reed Jr, a commentator for 247 Sports, tweeting that “a source” told him that Sluka hired an agent after wins over Houston and Kansas…” without disclosing that Reed has a commercial relationship with UNLV OC Brennan Marion.

You had other coaches or folks in the building clearly trying to build a “somebody tampered” narrative right after the news broke. And of course, there’s now more ammunition for anybody to use for any sort of agenda, be it reflexive NCAA criticism, athlete employment status, stronger NIL regulations, or anything else.

While I appreciate the commitment of everybody involved in this story to provide #content, this entire dispute feels like something that really should have been resolved in private. Now, an athlete with very limited earning potential has burned bridges with his current team (and is no lock to get picked up by a better program), an agent damaged his professional reputation, a program that badly needs on-the-field attention now gets the spotlight for the wrong reasons and a place that already struggles to recruit will face more questions on the trail.

Nobody won here!

Yes, the current NIL status quo is immoral and inefficient. Yes, standardized contracts would fix many of these problems. But I’m not convinced this affair is a harbinger for things to come

To burn a redshirt and try to transfer before October 1 requires a particular set of circumstances. They have to be good enough to feel confident they can find a secure landing spot without playing most of the season. But they also have to not be good enough to expect to have much of a shot at NFL earnings…and also not care about winning league titles, awards, or anything to do with a legacy.

Those players exist, but that situation isn’t common. Most athletes who want to maximize NIL earning potential will be advised to play at least most of their regular season, as to give themselves more opportunity to “play their way” to a better situation. If a player is going to strategically use a redshirt early in the season, it’s more likely to simply find a situation with more playing time, rather than to maximize collective money.

If Sluka doesn’t end up smelling like roses at some SEC school next season, I suspect this will be used more as a cautionary tale, rather than a blueprint for others.

Hey, speaking of contracts, if you want to access our new directory of over 3,500 contracts…from AD contracts to head coaches, assistants to shoe deals, major vendor agreements and much more…check out our newly launched Extra Points Library product. We’re already hard at work at adding even more documents to help everybody who works in and studies the college sports industry.

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