WHO MAKES $8 MILLION? WHAT ABOUT HARBAUGH? THE NEW WORLD AWAITS
College football has one player this season making $8 million, a backup Tennessee quarterback named Nico Iamaleava, and the NIL figures awaiting Caleb Williams and Drake Maye won’t reach that level
Drive down the road in Los Angeles, all but any journey, and see a billboard that Reggie Bush should win a long, lost Heisman Trophy. We’re 18 years since the ruling, but no one cares anymore. It has become obvious that Bush and any winner should receive his award, including one that took his Heisman after his family accepted cash, a house and a payment for travel.
If you don’t believe that, listen to Johnny Manziel on what is now X. “There is nothing I want to see more than for Reggie to get his Heisman back,” he wrote. “I think what the NCAA did in that situation is complete bulls--t. He is one of the best college football players in history and deserves to be on that stage with us every year. The only difference between my story and Reggie’s is that my ‘illegal activities’ did not start until after my Heisman season.”
Anyone who watches Manziel, whose life turned to near-suicide in a Netflix documentary, realizes why all those awards are absurd. Since the NIL era launched two years ago, the issue isn’t about who should win trophies. It’s about which players receive how much to play college football. And now that Oregon and Washington are headed to the Big (Whatever) next season with USC and UCLA — along with wherever The Clanker deposits Stanford and California — that price is mind-boggling. It can be whatever a collective wants to pay, even if it’s not worth it. Some schools have $10 million. Some have $100,000.
It’s whatever they want to pay. Chances are, very close to the top four are Georgia, Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State.
“If you think there’s disparity in college football now, there’s going to be a lot more in the future,” said Nick Saban, who knows that pay-for-play is happening in the names, images and likenesses game. “I made the statement years ago and got very criticized for it: Is this what we want college football to become? So, now it’s kind of becoming that. I don’t think it’s going to be a level playing field because some people are showing a willingness to spend more than others.”
Which explains why Jim Harbaugh might never sit out a Michigan infractions case “rejected” by the NCAA Committee on Infractions. Why implicate the coach who no longer is involved in under-the-table payments? It’s all across the top, right? “The Michigan infractions case is related to impermissible on and off-campus recruiting during a COVID-19 dead period and impermissible coaching activities — not a cheeseburger," said Derrick Crawford, the NCAA vice president of hearing operations, on Saturday. “It is not uncommon to seek clarification on key facts prior to accepting." Rather than miss an easy four-way home competition against East Carolina, Bowling Green, UNLV and Rutgers, Harbaugh might never face the ramifications if, say, he finally takes an NFL gig after the season. That’s what Pete Carroll once did at USC.
“I would love to lay it all out there. Nothing to be ashamed of,’’ said Harbaugh, who will be on the sideline Sept. 2 in Ann Arbor. “But now is not that time. That’s about all there is to say.”
And which explains why the finest quarterback in college football, USC’s Caleb Williams, barely will top the NIL earnings of the backup freshman at Tennessee. We are entering a season in which Nico Iamaleava will make $8 million for four years, even though he sits behind Joe Milton, who will turn 24 next winter after leaving Harbaugh and Michigan in … 2020? Never mind that Iamaleava is five years behind Milton. “You’ve got to grow. You’ve got to be pushed. He’s running everything,” coach Josh Heupel said. “He hasn’t been perfect, but he’s grown. One of the things that we talk about is not making the same mistake twice.”
Wow. Maybe cut that $8 million to $1 million? Nah, Spyre Sports is sticking by Nico … for now. Not so at Florida. That’s where Jaden Rashada, yet another QB from southern California who saw his $13 million deal evaporate over four years, leading to an Arizona State deal in the new Big 12, where he’ll make $423,000 on a football-and-stats valuation. Meanwhile, what is Drake Maye making at North Carolina, where he and Williams are starting a tussle for best QB in the 2024 NFL Draft? Maye is at $1.5 million, where he and other Tar Heels are showing up this evening at the “Heels, Huddle & Handshakes” deal at the Tremont Local Drinkery and Eatery in Charlotte.
But he’s not at Iamaleava money. Nor is Arch Manning, who could name his price at Texas but chose to take only $102,500 in his first NIL deal. It could be Manning waits until 2024 before playing his freshman year — is he sure he made the right deal? — but there’s no rush before he enters the 2026 Draft. He knows what he’s doing. Better than his uncles knew.
“This is a cutthroat business,” said Florida’s Billy Napier, who lost on Rashada. “There’s no doubt tampering is real. And I think that until there’s something done about it, I think that you’ll continue to see it.”
The only coach to make a call is Pittsburgh’s Pat Narduzzi, who questioned the transfer last year of Jordan Addison to USC. “What’s come of that?” Napier said. “So ultimately, I think, to each his own, we all got an approach that we've chosen to take. We're going to control what we control at the University of Florida. That's our player experience, that's our evaluation process, our recruitment process to try to position our team in the best position.”
Best of luck with that. Only at Georgia, where Kirby Smart is trying to become the first coach to win three national championships since Minnesota in 1934-36. All he did throughout the postseason is stop his football drivers from killer crashes, which leaves a serious problem in the triple-whammy debate. For now, he wants players to stick around. “It's hard to police that. So, it's disturbing, it's upsetting, but I really don't know,” Smart said. “People want to blame the coaches for tampering. But a lot of the time, it’s the player who is negotiating or is looking for greener pastures. When they do that, sometimes they create the tampering.”
At least players in less-than-championship modes find ways to make their own money. How would you like to be a football fan and know that Iowa State has a starting running back and starting quarterback, in Jirehl Brock and Hunter Dekkers, in a gambling mess? Time was when a program would be devastated for decades. Now the Cyclones will be down for, what, a season?
I will be there if Reggie Bush wins his Heisman. “The story continues,” he said. “It’s not done yet. Without a doubt. Without a doubt.”
And when he does? Will anyone care? It’s all whether Nico Iamaleava becomes the first to make $8 million, whoever he is.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.