NIL

Blake Horvath is elite college football quarterback with no NIL money

Published

4 months ago

August 27, 2025

Your Sports Nation

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Consider these rankings.

At No. 10 is D.J. Lagway, a five-star recruit from a year ago, a trendy Heisman pick who likely saved Billy Napier’s job and has Florida fans legitimately excited for the first time in years.

At No. 9 is Arch Manning, the most recognizable player in college football, as close to a Chosen One as has existed in football for a long while.

At No. 8 is Blake Horvath. Navy’s quarterback.

That’s the way EA Sports College Football 26 ranked those three quarterbacks ahead of the game’s release this summer, putting Horvath in an elite tier next to the game’s best. He’s part of a top 10 that includes Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier and the rest of the names you’d recognize.

This being college football in 2025, that means everyone on that level is being well-compensated. It’s probably conservative to estimate that every elite quarterback in the country is at least a millionaire, with plenty of those names earning way more than that. Duke quarterback Darian Mensah is making a reported $4 million a year. Klubnik has an NIL valuation of $3.3 million, per On3. Manning is estimated to make more than $6 million.

“It’s funny sometimes to look around and be like, ‘Wow, that guy’s getting $6 million, that guy’s getting $4 million,” Horvath said at American Conference media days in July.

Horvath’s valuation is simple, and it isn’t an estimate. It’s $0.

Athletes at service academies are considered government employees and are not allowed to make money off their name, image and likeness. The service academies are also barred from opting into the House v. NCAA settlement that allowed schools to directly pay athletes for the first time.

For Horvath, who threw for 1,353 yards and rushed for 1,246 while leading the Midshipmen to a 10-3 record in 2024, that means (at least) hundreds of thousands and probably more that he can’t have access to. His NIL valuation might be in the seven figures.

Horvath won’t make a dime this season from NIL. He does earn about $1,200 per month in gross pay, like all other plebes do as part of their enrollment before graduation. But don’t get it twisted: He’s exactly where he wants to be.

“There was never a thought in my mind to leave,” he said. “I don’t think there’s another quarterback or player in the country who’s a better fit for a system than I am at Navy.”

How Blake Horvath ended up at Navy

“Every time he gets the ball, he scores,” Laura Horvath, Blake’s mom, once texted her husband. “I don’t know if that’s normal.”

This wasn’t during last season’s Navy-Memphis game, but it might as well have been. That was when Horvath announced himself as a legitimate quarterback to a national audience, amassing more than 400 yards of total offense and six combined touchdowns running and throwing in a game where every nearly photo of Horvath includes a defender chasing after him, somewhere in the distance.

Unlike Manning and Lagway, Horvath was not a five-star recruit. He grew up just outside Columbus, Ohio, born into a family of diehard Buckeye fans. It’d take longer to list the members of his extended family who didn’t go to Ohio State.

A three sport athlete (basketball, baseball and football), Horvath ran the triple-option offense at Hilliard Darby High School. Former coach John Santagata estimates they’d throw the ball an average of five times a game.

“It was a clone, at the time, of Navy’s offense,” Santagata said.

Perfect, then, that Navy was the only Bowl Subdivision team that recruited Horvath as a quarterback. Santagata typically put his best athlete at quarterback in his option scheme, and he’d had plenty of former high school quarterbacks transition to other positions in college. Horvath had offers from MAC schools to play wide receiver or defensive back. But he wanted to play quarterback.

Freshman rarely see significant playing time at Navy. Horvath was on the scout team for the kickoff unit.

He played only four games his sophomore year because of a finger injury, splitting time with Tai Lavatai at quarterback. The Midshipmen struggled and went 5-7. After a loss at Memphis, Horvath pulled his hood over his head and looked at the ground as he went to say hello to his mom. She’d never seen him do that before.

A year later, the game against the Tigers marked the peak of his career.

“If you really want to get to the nitty, gritty, the underlying cause of all that,” Laura Horvath said, “It’s Coach Cronic coming in. It’s just astronomical, the turnaround.”

How Drew Cronic changed Navy’s offense

Brian Newberry took over as Navy head coach in 2023, earning a promotion from defensive coordinator after Ken Niumatalolo was fired. After his first season in charge, Newberry decided to bring in a new offensive coordinator. He turned to Drew Cronic, who had been the head coach at Championship Subdivision school Mercer.

A few months after he arrived in Annapolis, Cronic and a few of the players went out to run some routes and go through some passing plays.

“It was awful,” he said.

For years, the service academies have run the triple-option as a way to level the playing field against teams that usually have bigger and better athletes. It gives them an advantage – a unique style of play that other teams aren’t used to seeing. But it can also be one-dimensional. When it doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work.

Cronic wanted to give opposing defenses more to think about. That meant more time in the shotgun, more potential options. And, yes, the chance to throw the ball more. Horvath ultimately averaged about 10 pass attempts per game in 2024, a number that doesn’t put him close to the rest of those elite quarterbacks from the game’s rankings but still a higher number than most fans would expect from a service academy.

By the end of training camp, Cronic believed in what he’d created. The next few months more than validated it as the Midshipmen won 10 games for the first time since 2019 and finished the season with defeats of Army and Oklahoma.

Horvath was also one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the country last season, but didn’t qualify for the official ratings because he threw too few passes. He also rushed for 17 touchdowns, with plenty of his big plays coming out of the shotgun.

“I thought he’d be a good runner,” Cronic said. “But he’s a really good runner. It’s very subtle. He makes very subtle cuts without slowing down. He sees things, he has good vision. And can wiggle by you before you realize just how well he runs.”

Can service academies thrive in the revenue sharing era?

Were this a normal college football team, the next part of the story would be all too-familiar for college football fans.

Consider other programs outside the Power Four conferences that had successful quarterbacks in 2024. Tulane’s Mensah? Gone to Duke. South Alabama’s Gio Lopez? Gone to North Carolina. Washington State’s John Mateer? Gone to Oklahoma. New Mexico’s Devon Dampier? Gone to Utah. Liberty’s Kaidon Salter? Gone to Colorado. North Texas’ Chandler Morris? Gone to Virginia. Appalachian State’s Joey Aguilar? Gone to Tennessee, with a quick pit stop at UCLA.

Horvath was never going anywhere. That’s for a couple reasons.

For one, students at the Naval Academy sign what’s referred to as a “2 for 7” before they begin their junior years. It essentially means they’re committing to serve in the Navy for five years after graduation in exchange for the next two years of their education. Getting out of that contract would require significant legal maneuvering, and anyone doing it would have to pay back the money the government as already spent on their education.

In current college football terms: A six-figure buyout.

Horvath said he never had serious discussions about that.

“I don’t really entertain those,” he said. “I shut those down before they really even start.”

Horvath’s breakout came during his junior season. But what if it had happened a year earlier, before he’d signed his 2 for 7?

Consider Army running back Kanye Udoh. He rushed for 1,117 yards as a sophomore for the Black Knights in 2024, then entered the transfer portal and enrolled at Arizona State.

It’s something Army’s team has not had to even consider until the past few years. And it puts a service academy in a difficult spot, because they can’t recruit a replacement from the portal.

“If you’ve got a young man who grew up without luxuries in his life, didn’t come from a family where they had a lot of money and all of a sudden he’s got a chance to make hundreds of thousands of dollars immediately and change the lives of his family immediately, how do you argue with that?” Army coach Jeff Monken said. “What do you say? You want the guy to stay. You care about him, you love him. You want him to be compelled to stay with his teammates. But you also want to stand up, shake his hand and say, ‘Congratulations.’ Because it’s more money than maybe anybody in his family’s ever made in their lifetimes.”

Monken and Newberry usually have a similar recruiting pitch to offset questions about NIL money: The money is coming on the back end. It’s true, obviously — graduates of service academies tend to do pretty well for themselves in their careers.

They have differing views, though, on how the current state of college football is affecting their recruitment.

“What’s going on right now in college football is helping us,” Newberry said. “That’s been reflected in the way we’ve been able to recruit for the last two years. Because high school players aren’t getting the same amount of opportunities as they used to. There’s not that many scholarships going out for high school players. And so we’re able to recruit kids right now that we weren’t able to recruit before all this.”

Monken pushed back on that.

“Their recruiting pool and our recruiting pool is the same recruiting pool,” he said. “It’s always been the same recruiting pool. There are just certain young men who are not going to entertain an academy offer because they don’t want to go into the military. And so that cuts our recruiting pool down, way down.”

The academies are unique for a few other reasons, too. Because they did not opt in to the House settlement, they aren’t bound by any roster limits and can have an unlimited number of players. That’s extremely important because they don’t use the transfer portal to replace players who leave.

And they have pretty straightforward roster turnover. Most football players at the academies aren’t going to the NFL anyways, so they’re more than happy to move on with their lives after playing their four years.

Could Blake Horvath get another year of eligibility?

But what if it wasn’t just four years?

Service academies doesn’t redshirt players. That makes sense on the surface when you consider the entire point of the academies is to prepare students for careers in the military. But it puts those three teams at an obvious disadvantage on the field.

Army and Air Force have used something called “turnbacks” to sometimes get extra years for players. That’s a term that refers to a student who essentially applies to take an extra semester or two to graduate. Newberry wants to open the door for some players to take an extra year if they’ve had a serious injury.

His rationale is essentially this: At Navy, almost nobody ever plays as a freshman. If someone has a season-ending injury, that’s another year gone. That would leave someone with only two seasons of play.

Horvath is eligible for an extra year because of the season-ending finger injury in 2023.

Newberry said he’s cleared it with the Secretary of the Navy, but ultimately it’ll come down to a case-by-case basis.

“Maybe it’ll happen,” Horvath said. “But that’s after the season stuff. We’ll deal with that when it comes.”

For now, then, it’s back to the drawing board. Back to work with Cronic trying to figure out the next iteration of the Navy offense, one that gets them beyond 10 wins and to an American Conference title game.

The kid leading that team will do it without earning a dime, a perfect juxtaposition with the team that he grew up watching.

“I do know that everybody gets NIL money,” Laura Horvath said. “We hear about that all the time. We live in Columbus, Ohio. Nobody gets more NIL than them. It paid for a national championship.”

Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jdylan@gannett.com or on X @thejonahdylan.

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Troy Aikman convinced Joe Buck not to fund Indiana football

Published

8 minutes ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

After witnessing Troy Aikman’s tribulations with NIL at UCLA, Joe Buck has no interest in funding Indiana football.

Last month, Aikman told Richard Deitsch he was a one and done with NIL, claiming he wrote UCLA a sizable check to secure a star recruit who ultimately left for another school after just one season. Aikman was further miffed by the fact that he didn’t even get a thank you note for his donation.

It has been widely assumed that current Oregon quarterback Dante Moore is the player Aikman was referring to. And according to UCLA, school protocol prohibits players from knowing which donors contributed NIL funds, thus making thank you notes difficult. Considering NIL has turned college sports into the Wild West, it is odd that a line is drawn at players learning where the money comes from. Protocol or not, Aikman didn’t like his foray into funding college players, and it seems to have rubbed off on Buck.

The Monday Night Football play-by-play voice joined The Morning After on 101 ESPN this week where they discussed his alma mater playing in the College Football Playoff semifinals this week. As a former Indiana University student, Joe Buck is now in the unprecedented position of seeing his favorite college football team morph into a football powerhouse. Unfortunately for Indiana, Aikman’s experience with NIL has already soured Buck on the idea of donating to their football program.

“Troy has talked to me about what went on at UCLA and kind of what he got for the money that he donated and that will not be something that I will be partaking in,” Buck said.

“He left!” Buck added of the UCLA player that supposedly received a sizable check from Aikman. “You don’t get the money back from what I understand…it doesn’t seem like a great program for the donor.”

The good news for Indiana University, who boasts Mark Cuban’s pockets as an alumnus, is that Buck also claims the local wealthy farmers are heavily involved in supporting NIL.

“I’m not being a smart aleck about it, I think there are a lot of farmers around Indiana that are making money,” Buck said. “It’s almost like everybody has come out of the woodwork and it’s like, ‘Let me have my little piece of this’ because it’s been so long and they’re willing to send money in, from what I hear.”

It’s hard to argue with Buck and Aikman. Where’s the incentive to spend big dollars on a recruit who can leave after one season? And we’re not even going to get into the fact those players are prohibited from offering a thank you note in return. But hopefully for Indiana, those hardworking farmers don’t start taking NIL advice from Buck the way he did from Aikman.

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Demond Williams announces he’ll return to Washington for junior season

Published

1 hour ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

Demond Williams Jr.’s dalliance with the transfer portal has come to an end.

The Washington quarterback, who announced Tuesday that he planned to enter the portal despite signing a contract with Washington four days prior, wrote in an Instagram post Thursday that he is “excited to announce that I will continue my football journey at the University of Washington.”

Williams wrote that the decision came “after thoughtful reflection with my family.”

Williams’ return ends a two-day saga over the quarterback’s status.

Williams signed a contract agreeing to return to the Huskies in early January, a Washington source close to the negotiations told The Athletic on Tuesday night. Yet, Williams said in an Instagram post Tuesday that transferring was “best for me and my future.” Williams had not filed any paperwork with Washington compliance officers to have his name entered into the portal before making his announcement on social media.

Washington sources told The Athletic after Williams’ announcement that the program had “no intention” of releasing the quarterback from the contract he signed Jan. 2 and was prepared to pursue legal action to enforce the terms of the contract, according to a person briefed on the situation.

On Thursday night, ESPN reported that Williams was “leaning toward returning,” and a Washington source told The Athletic that the program was willing to “take back” its star.

Shortly after Williams posted that he was returning, Washington head coach Jedd Fisch and athletic director Patrick Chun also released statements on social media confirming Williams’ return.

Statements from Head Coach Jedd Fisch and UW Director of Athletics Pat Chun. pic.twitter.com/gq7wDL0cn5

— Washington Athletics (@UWAthletics) January 9, 2026

“Over the last few days, Demond and I have engaged in very honest and heartfelt conversations about his present and future,” Fisch wrote. “We both agree that the University of Washington is the best place for him to continue his academic, athletic, and social development.

“I appreciate Demond’s statement. I support him, and we will work together to begin the process of repairing relationships and regaining the trust of the Husky community.”

Chun wrote that the situation was “emblematic of the many current issues in college sports,” adding, “It is critical in this post-House, revenue-sharing environment that contracts with student-athletes are not only enforced but respected by everyone within the college sports ecosystem.”

Leaving Washington after signing a contract could have potentially been costly for Williams.

The Big Ten has a revenue-share contract template that its schools use, varying slightly based on different state laws or individual negotiations. Those contracts state that if a player intends to transfer before the end of a payment period, he owes the remaining amount on his contract, unless the school agrees to accept a buyout from the player or the player’s next school, according to multiple copies obtained by The Athletic. The contracts also state that the school is “not obligated” to enter a player into the portal.

In this case, Williams would likely have owed Washington $4 million for the one-year deal if his deal was based on those templates. The buyout also could have counted toward his next school’s revenue-sharing cap, according to Collegiate Sports Commission rules.

However, it’s unclear if such contracts would hold up in court. Williams obtained the services of noted NIL lawyer Darren Heitner earlier Thursday, but it doesn’t appear this will be challenged. Former Georgia defensive end Damon Wilson II last month sued Georgia’s athletic association over its attempt to get $390,000 from his decision to transfer last year. The case is ongoing.

Big Ten officials held a call with the conference’s athletic directors earlier Thursday to assure them that the league office would support Washington in its enforcement of the contract, according to a person involved in the meeting.

Williams followed Fisch to Seattle two years ago after committing to Arizona out of high school. However, before signing with Fisch at Arizona, Williams initially committed to Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin in late 2022. He de-committed the following summer. Williams started the 2025 season, with Fisch not holding back the hype for his quarterback entering the season.

“I would probably say, at this age, not even 19, he’s the best player I’ve ever been around,” Fisch said on the “Until Saturday” podcast last spring. “… My goal from when I started recruiting him in high school, and I told him this, we’re going to partner up and find a way to be in New York City when it’s time for the Heisman.”

Williams has thrown for 4,009 yards and 33 touchdowns against nine interceptions, adding 893 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns in 26 career games at Washington. In his first season as the starter, he passed for 3,065 yards and 25 touchdowns, earning All-Big Ten honorable mention honors.

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Bo Jackson could leave Ohio State, seeking major NIL deal

Published

2 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

After Ohio State’s College Football Playoff exit at the hands of the Miami Hurricanes, the Buckeyes have been bleeding players to the transfer portal.

22 Buckeyes have entered the portal as of Wednesday afternoon, including two running backs, James Peoples and Sam Williams-Dixon.

Now, Ohio State may be at risk of losing a third, the program’s star freshman.

Ohio State portal entries so far, with 9 Days left in the portal:
– QB Lincoln Keinholz
– RB James Peoples
– RB Sam Williams Dixon
– WR Quincy Porter
– WR Mylan Graham
– WR Bryson Rodgers
– WR Damarion Witten
– TE Jaleni Thurman
– IOL Tegra Tshabola
– IOL Jayvon McFadden…

— Swish (@swishxvibes) January 7, 2026

Ohio State running back Bo Jackson may be entering the transfer portal if the Buckeyes cannot meet the desired amount he and his camp are seeking. According to WBNS-TV, Jackson is seeking an NIL deal that would surpass what Ohio State’s running backs earned last season and rival some NFL rookie contracts.

“From what I understand, the request from [Bo Jackson] is more than what TreVeyon [Henderson]’s salary was for the New England Patriots this year,” Jeremy Birmingham said on The Beat with Austin & Birm Thursday morning. “And, more than both TreVeyon and Quinshon [Judkins] made in their final year at Ohio State, and maybe combined.”

Per reports from On3, Judkins’ NIL valuation at the end of his Ohio State career was $1.1 million. For Henderson, while less than his counterpart, reportedly made over $700,000 at the end of the 2023 season.

Additionally, Henderson’s contract with the New England Patriots is a four-year rookie deal valued at just over $11 million, with a $4.7 million signing bonus. Henderson’s rookie year base pay with New England is $840,000, with a $1.1 million signing bonus.

Based on those figures, it appears that Jackson and his camp may be requesting the Buckeyes to pay somewhere in the realm of $1.8 million to retain the freshman.

If all the rumors are true, Ohio State will have to decide whether spending a huge chunk of its NIL money to pay just one starter is worth not letting him slip into the transfer portal. A nearly $2 million NIL deal for Ohio State would cost around 10 percent of the program’s total NIL budget of last season, which Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork said cost around $20 million.

Ohio State will have to decide if Jackson’s freshman performance is worth the high pay. During his first year as a Buckeye, Jackson rushed for 1,090 yards (No. 24 nationally) and six touchdowns (No. 120 nationally) over the span of 13 games. Jackson averaged 6.1 yards per carry.

In Judkins and Henderson’s final seasons with Ohio State, the running back duo both rushed for more than 1,000 yards each and combined for 24 rushing touchdowns in 16 games.

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College football program loses 34 players to transfer portal

Published

3 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

Just one year ago, Colorado was one of college football’s most talked-about success stories.

The Buffaloes finished 9–4 in 2024, riding national attention, high-profile transfers, and head coach Deion Sanders’ star power into bowl relevance and Big 12 respectability.

As a result, expectations entering 2025 were significantly higher, with the belief that continuity and experience would push the program forward.

Instead, the season collapsed: Colorado stumbled to a 3–9 record, managing just one conference win and struggling on both sides of the ball.

The Buffaloes routinely found themselves outmatched, and the optimism that defined the previous year slowly gave way to frustration as the team lost its final five games, including back-to-back conference losses to Utah and Arizona, both of which saw Colorado allow 50-plus points.

Adding insult to injury, former blue-chip recruit Kam Mikell announced his decision to enter the transfer portal on Wednesday, becoming the 34th Colorado player to leave the program since the end of the season.

A highly regarded, four-star recruit (No. 2 ATH in the 2024 class by 247Sports) when he arrived, Mikell was initially viewed as an offensive chess piece capable of contributing at wide receiver or in the backfield.

In 2025, Mikell’s role shifted primarily to the run game as Colorado searched for offensive answers, appearing in 10 games and totaling 75 rushing yards on 19 carries (3.9 yards per carry), along with two receptions for 5 yards.

Despite his athletic upside, a defined role never materialized, ultimately leading him to pursue another opportunity elsewhere.

More concerning, however, is that his exit reflects a broader exodus that has rapidly reshaped the roster.

Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver Kam Mikell. — Morgantown, West Virginia, USA; Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver Kam Mikell (18) runs the ball during the second quarter against the West Virginia Mountaineers at Milan Puskar Stadium. | Ben Queen-Imagn Images

More than 30 scholarship players have entered the portal, highlighted by leading receiver Omarion Miller (808 yards, eight touchdowns on 45 receptions) and leading tackler Tawfiq Byard (79 total tackles), along with several linemen and depth contributors.

The volume of departures is among the highest in the country this cycle.

This level of churn is not entirely new under Sanders, who, since arriving at Colorado in 2023, has aggressively leveraged the transfer portal to rapidly overhaul the roster with experienced college players and high-profile recruits.

To his credit, those exits have been paired with incoming talent, as Colorado has already added 22 transfers, including Texas linebacker Liona Lefau, Missouri offensive tackle Jayven Richardson, and Notre Dame cornerback Cree Thomas.

Still, the scale of departures following a losing season is far from ideal.

NIL

UCLA lands a top transfer in James Madison running back Wayne Knight

Published

4 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Your Sports Nation

UCLA has landed a transfer who could hasten Bob Chesney’s rebuilding efforts.

Wayne Knight verbally committed to following Chesney from James Madison to Westwood on Wednesday, giving the new Bruins coach a high-quality running back to pair with quarterback Nico Iamaleava.

Showing what he could do on a national stage last month, Knight ran for 110 yards in 17 carries against Oregon in the College Football Playoff. It was the fifth 100-yard rushing game of the season for Knight on the way to being selected a first team All-Sun Belt Conference player.

Combining excellent speed with the toughness needed to break tackles, the 5-foot-6, 189-pound Knight led the conference with 1,357 rushing yards. He also made 40 catches for 397 yards and averaged 22.3 yards on kickoff returns and 9.5 yards on punt returns. His 2,039 all-purpose yards were a school record, helping him become an Associated Press second team All-American all-purpose player after ranking third nationally with 145.6 all-purpose yards per game.

Knight, who will be a redshirt senior next season in his final year of college eligibility, becomes the seventh player from James Madison to accompany Chesney to UCLA, joining wide receiver Landon Ellis, defensive back DJ Barksdale, tight end Josh Phifer, edge rusher Aiden Gobaira, right guard Riley Robell and offensive lineman JD Rayner.

UCLA also has received verbal commitments from Michigan wide receiver Semaj Morgan, Florida wide receiver Aidan Mizell, San Jose State wide receiver Leland Smith, Iowa State running back Dylan Lee, Boise State offensive tackle Hall Schmidt, Virginia Tech defensive back Dante Lovett, Iowa State defensive back Ta’Shawn James and California edge rusher Ryan McCulloch.

But no incoming player can match the production of Knight, whose highlights included a career-high 211 rushing yards — including a 73-yard touchdown — against Troy in the Sun Belt championship game, earning him most valuable player honors for the Dukes’ 31-14 victory.

Knight will join a group of running backs that includes senior Jaivian Thomas (294 yards rushing and one touchdown in 2025), redshirt senior Anthony Woods (294 yards rushing in 2025) and redshirt freshman Karson Cox (nine yards in two carries during his only appearance as a true freshman).

With Knight on board, the Bruins presumably have their starting running back in Year 1 under their new coach.

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LSU’s $3.5 million NIL offer to Cincinnati transfer QB Brendan Sorsby revealed

Published

5 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Your Sports Nation

Former Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby took over the title as college football’s most-expensive player after reportedly inking a $5 million agreement with Texas Tech, according to On3’s Pete Nakos. Sorsby formally committed to the Red Raiders on Sunday night over heavy interest from LSU and new head coach Lane Kiffin.

According to Nakos, Sorsby’s deal with free-spending Texas Tech will make him one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in college football in 2026 after former Georgia QB Carson Beck signed a $3-3.5 million deal with Miami last offseason that could reach $5-6 million with incentives. Duke quarterback Darian Mensah earned $4 million this past season after transferring from Tulane.

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But before the oil money-backed Red Raiders raised the financial bar, LSU and Kiffin reportedly offered Sorsby a financial package much more in line with the Mensah deal last year, proposing a $3.5 million offer, according to documents obtained by Yahoo! Sports insider Ross Dellenger. LSU’s Sorsby offer included a third-party NIL marketing deal through the Tigers’ multi-media rights partner, Playfly Sports Properties, that would be exempt from counting against the school’s revenue-sharing cap, per Dellenger.

Documents: LSU proposed to QB Brendan Sorsby a $3.5M NIL guarantee thru its MMR partner.

In a fascinating window into QB bidding wars, schools are using corporate sponsors to exceed the cap with lucrative promises that haven’t yet passed the clearinghousehttps://t.co/5Or09TFtk9 pic.twitter.com/pOztmpsOK2

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) January 7, 2026

The 11-page NIL contract between Playfly and Sorsby, obtained by Dellenger, was never signed and is purely a proposed service agreement. Though it does provide an interesting look at how schools are utilizing outside NIL agreements to develop a compensation package without exceeding college football’s $20.5 million salary cap that stems from the House vs. NCAA settlement in June.

Dellenger also points out that the proposed contract would be, in theory, only a portion of Sorsby’s total compensation. The NIL deal even includes certain language suggesting LSU also planned to compensate Sorsby through direct revenue-share payments from the school, likely in the range of at least $1 million for a total figure that would be competitive with Texas Tech‘s $5 million package, per Dellenger.

The $3.5 million NIL deal is a marketing guarantee created by Playfly through NILSU MAX, an independent, self-sustaining collective formed in conjunction with LSU athletics and Playfly to “identify and secure NIL opportunities for Tiger student athletes,” according to the university’s website.

As Dellenger points out, the Sorsby contract obtained by Yahoo! Sports “shines a light on the method in which universities — not just LSU — are assembling financial packages for some athletes: with a portion of direct university revenue-share payments, plus a portion of NIL third-party guarantees that have been promised yet not cleared.”

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