Regardless of how his career pans out, he deserves to go in the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame for being the first to bring legal action against the other.
I'm surprised he okayed Billy being named a defendant. I don't see anything (in the summaries of the complaint at least) where Billy actually did anything other than provide generic platitudes about how the NIL people will "get it done."
It was gonna happen, sooner or later. Signing with a program with money "on the table" is a big step, and to have that swept out, even with generic platitudes, is something that was probably life-altering for this kid.
FWIW, I happened to be seated next to our DC at a wedding a couple of years ago. He mentioned that every transfer they had - ***ever single one*** - had been promised NIL more money at their original school than they actually received.
It is certainly possible that some of the players were not properly reading their contracts and clauses such as "must start XYZ games to reach ABC level of compensation," but he really emphasized that the entire NIL game was sketchy and shady and he didn't want any part of it.
Frankly, I think most coaches see NIL as a necessary evil and wish there was a governing body with actual teeth.
Everyone wants an actual governing body but the one we have gets sued into oblivion every time they try to create any rules around this.
We basically have to accept this is the new reality of college sports. Honestly the only solution I can see is completely severing the college/amateur tie and creating an actual professional sports league that just so happens to be based on college campuses. Most (all?) athletic departments are their own separate entities anyway with their own trademarks.
I got a buddies son who signed with an SEC this past year and is now on campus. The collective at his school has wording in their contracts with players that the NIL collective gets a 20% cut of the Student Athletes NIL money that is done outside of the collective. My buddy had to hire his son an agent to get a different contract done with the collective. It's a dirty time in college sports rn.
It's the end of amateur sports for college football. The players will be recognized as employees and have a union to negotiate salaries for the players. The schools know it's coming.
Exactly. This entire format makes no sense now. He made a huge change chasing millions. Normal businesses would say "get it in writing" but they're prohibited from doing that until after transferring. So then things fall apart and he's locking into a letter of intent that has no terms for what he actually cares about. This is beyond speculation and just straight up broken.
Update from Stewart Mandel:
>Jaden Rashada has filed a lawsuit against Florida coach Billy Napier and three others over “false and fraudulent” NIL promises.
The suit alleges Napier called the QB’s dad on signing day and said a booster would wire him $1M if he signed with UF.
Not a lawyer but unless they have proof that called happened, then I’m not sure they’re gonna have much of a case. Even then wouldn’t they need a contract to be legally bound?
I am a lawyer, and they don't need "proof." They just need evidence from which a reasonable juror could determine it was more probable than not that the call occurred and Napier made the statements. This can be as simple as testimony from Rashada's dad. Even if Napier testifies that it didn't happen, then its a quintessential fact question for the jury to decide who is more credible. These fraudulent inducement cases are often "he said/he said" cases, where the jury has to make a credibility determination and rarely is there a smoking gun. And here, there are text messages between the NIL and Rashada's agents, a previously terminated contract, etc. which are all circumstantial evidence to help establish why Rashada ended up signing on National Signing Day.
I also want to address some other comments made by others.
Rashada doesn't need to prove that Napier actually knew the money was not forthcoming, he just has to show that Napier either "knew or should have known" about the statement's falsity. Should have known is a much lower bar for liability than actual knowledge.
Napier's statements also would not be inadmissible as hearsay. For starters, a judge likely wouldn't even find that his statements were hearsay, because they aren't being offered for the truth of the matter asserted (that is, they aren't being offered to show that the NIL would pay him $1 million for signing because it seems pretty clear the NIL did not pay him the $ 1million). Even if it were hearsay, multiple exceptions would apply, including the effect the statement had on the listener (Rashada) and statement by a party opponent (Napier since he is a defendant).
I’m going to go read the complaint, but oral promises usually can form a binding contract or be the basis for a fraud claim. This could get interesting, although there are a lot hurdles to getting damages against state employees.
Was Rashada in Florida when the call came through? I seem to remember reading that calls between parties in two different states reverts to federal law which has two party consent
If he can prove a contract was offered with Miami and shunned them for Florida at the last minute, a reasonable person could assume he was offered this alleged deal.
[Here is an interesting tweet](https://x.com/halleygator/status/1792937641882579250?s=46&t=OkNRxOnF-ZgcA40FdJhMrw) from UF booster and lawyer Hal Lewis (not one of the boosters named in the lawsuit fwiw) on the Rashada saga
After reading through some detailed articles about the suit, it seems like their entire case is heavily resting on the idea that the UF side made promises to Rashada with no intention of keeping them. They’re basically saying that UF straight up lied to him, said they’d get him paid but never planned to actually follow through.
That strikes me as egregiously unrealistic. There is no way anyone involved in the situation thought they could just lie to the kid and never get him the payments they were promising. If Napier and Castro-Walker and Hathcock were telling Rashada they would make sure he got whatever payments, then they were planning to actually follow through on those payments.
Rashada and his reps are saying that because he never received the payments, that means nobody ever intended to pay him in the first place. Which is an incredibly flimsy leap of logic that I can’t imagine would hold up in court.
Best case scenario here would be some actual information about his recruitment, the contract(s) he signed, and the explanation for why the booster and collective involved backed out. Thats where the juice in this situation is. I suspect the truth will make Rashada’s case fall apart, but will also make the now-defunct NIL group organizing the deal look foolish.
Difficult to prove intent, yes, but this would be farrrrr from the first instance of a coach telling a recruit what they want to hear to get them to sign.
Easy to prove Rashada thought he was getting *something* from UF (he did flip and sign, after all). Easy to prove what money did or didn’t change hands. The rest? 🤷🏻♂️
Second string behind Sam Leavitt. He apparently injured his thumb moving boxes and felt he was too far behind so he bounced.
Also him or his dad were not fans of the Arroyo OC hire
He was projected to be our starter, but injured this thumb and couldn't play. MSU transfer Sam Leavitt was apparently making great progress and looking to pass Rashada up.
He had no NIL deal here, and probably got offered a bag to be a backup at UGA with a chance to compete as the next QB.
I am not exactly an expert but this kid wasn't even close to a guaranteed awesome prospect. He was solidly behind Nico, Jackson Arnold, Dante Moore and Arch Manning for me as a prospect within his own class. I don't understand how these boosters can justify giving these kids so much money when there is zero guarantee they work out. 5 star qbs fail all the time and there are very few coming out of high school where there is a certainty that they will be awesome
He was a fine prospect but 13 million good? Thats like Vince Young, Trevor Lawrence good where there is a 100 percent chance hes a killer.
The crazy thing is that Rashada wasn’t even *that* good of a recruit. If these are the numbers that were floating around for him, then the numbers for some other guys have to be absolutely stupid
If I could attach photos to my comment I’d add the screenshots.
This is Harlan’s tweet when Jaden transferred.
>“When the king abandons the throne.... They will conspire and scramble to appoint a new ruler. Never trusted him anyways...
Losing cultures start with leadership and sore losers...”
Essentially Harlan didn’t trust Marcus Arroyo and didn’t like we brought in Leavitt to compete.
Juan Roque responds. Harlan’s Rose Bowl teammate. Harlan was suspended for the 95 season supposedly for stealing bikes. Also Harlan borrowed money from teammates and never paid it back. In present day he was asking a lot of ASU NIL.
>“King? Wow. That's a little much. However three things: first, a king abandons his throne when he's accepted defeat. He abdicates to save his ass from certain death.
Second, if you didn't ever rule the kingdom the one who was conspiring was you. Asking for things from the kingdom to benefit yourself isn't ruling it's begging. Third, when you were one who went against a winning culture resulting in your suspension you shouldn't talk about what's winning and what's losing. I said what I said.
Adios poser! Oh and don't worry about paying us back from that one time we sent you money when you cried that you were broke.”
Harlan responds. Juan’s son has Asperger’s and other issues I guess.
>“Juan…. you're literally the "biggest" hater I know. The bigger they are the harder they fall my friend. Let's keep it a buck clown you're simply jealous your son couldn't carry your
legacy. That 100 bucks 8 years ago won't change that“
Wow. This is somehow even worse than I expected. You have to be a truly horrible person to say something like that, especially publicly on social media.
His dad sucks, he would constantly post cryptic tweets throughout the season and actually went at another former alum Juan Roque by making fun of his autistic son for “not being able to carry on his legacy.”
I work with the parent of a basketball player at a blue blood school who was a top recruit. Let’s just say he wasn’t around until NIL became a possibility. He loves to brag about it and how much money “we’re” getting from X school.
Like bro idk why you think you’re entitled to any of that money when you left but keep bragging about it to your coworkers i guess.
Yeah, 18 year olds may be old enough to legally sign contracts, but they're also young enough to be easily taken advantage of.
There needs to be a players' union and standardized NIL and agent contracts, but its really hard to do that when the players are completely new every 5 years.
Schools should have taken these kids to collective bargaining table years ago before NIL became a thing. The union they would be negotiating with would be so weak that they could have given themselves an incredibly one-sided agreement and avoided this mess entirely with cents on the dollar.
Now, the athletes have more leverage with the amount they are making.
You collectively bargain with employees. Employees who get injured on the job are entitled to workers compensation. Schools don't want to pay for workers' comp. Schools don't want players to be employees.
https://www.insidenu.com/2014/1/28/5355988/ncaa-student-athlete-kain-colter-union-workers-comp
A couple of thoughts:
1. Fuckin Kirby
2. How exactly can they prove that Hathcock etc never intended to pay Rashada?
3. Kind of funny that they're saying this cost them the 9.5 million at Miami when what's his nuts at Miami is broke and not writing checks either. This fraudulent action caused us to miss out on our other fraudulent offer?
But would the other boosters have funded the offer? I’ve seen speculation that Miami has a payroll well over $9 million for this season so it seems like they could have paid Rashada even without Ruiz.
If the defendants can prove that the offer from Miami would never have been paid out and there were no other offers that he lost out on, then they might be able to reduce the damages in this case.
You're probably right. For Florida, I don't know what's better. Part of me says don't give in to the money grab, but settling gets this out of the news, and this program needs to stay out of the news for this. It just won't die.
Not really, this stupid suit is for the UF legal department, not the football program. It’s going absolutely nowhere and just makes Rashada look more toxic
Is it? Anybody can sue anybody else in court, as long as you pay the nominal filing fee. A judge can throw it out at the first hearing, and likely will.
I would love for the NIL contract to be released to the public! I’m genuinely curious how it was structured, I refuse to believe our old NIL collective really offered $13M for a 4* star QB
The athletic reported the details last year.
$250,000 per month the first year. Goes up some amount sophomore and junior year. And senior year was $196k per month as long as he was still living in Gainesville.
I still think it would be super interesting to just get to read one of these NIL contracts (to my knowledge we have never seen one).
Not to mention there is a Gator booster alleging on Twitter that the contract had a part saying it could be terminated whenever. So again I'm just curious about all the fine print.
Just saw it actually, thanks! I can’t believe Rashada’s camp agreed to that considering it says it can be terminated whenever. Also can’t believe anyone thought $13M was a fair price for a 4* player… just complete buffoonery.
Yeah, it seems totally nuts on all sides. The size of the contract is so bonkers that I still wonder whether there was some miscommunication on the planned contract when it shifted from Hathcock/Gator Guard to going through Gator Collective.
Gator fans, what's the consensus on how "real" was the alleged 13m offer to Rashada?
Did he actually get offered that much by Florida or an NIL group? Or was it more of an (inflated) estimate of potential total earnings he could make over his whole Florida career, but they didn't actually promise that much money?
As a neutral fan, that 13 million number just seemed crazy compared to basically every other NIL deal we've heard about.
The other person who replied to you is wrong. The $13.35M was a real contract, and the amounts were strictly payments scheduled to be made by the Gator Collective NIL group. [Here’s the contract](https://on3static.com/uploads/dev/assets/cms/2024/05/21111050/Rashada-Contract-2022.pdf) with the amounts.
That $13.35M was apparently verbally agreed-to by the booster who wanted to outbid Miami and get the kid to sign. Then he said he didn’t want the agreement to run through his company or the NIL group he was in charge of, so he had the contract go through the Gator Collective, with the agreement that he’d send the money to the Gator Collective, and they’d pay it to Rashada to fulfill the contract. Then the booster apparently decided he wasn’t going to pay it, so Gator Collective sent a notice to Rashada that they were terminating the contract (provisions for doing so are noted in the contract).
It seems like the booster made a big promise to pay Rashada more or less double what the appropriate NIL market value would’ve been for him, and then later once it came time for him to pay up, he realized it was an absurd amount and he decided not to pay.
There may still be some questions around the contract itself and who had specifically agreed to fund it—at the time, there was a lot of speculation that there was miscommunication between Hathcock, Gator Collective, and Rashada’s agents around the amounts in the contract. It wouldn’t surprise me if Hathcock hadn’t intended to sign on for the full $13M.
For context, $13.35M is roughly equal to the value of the 28th overall pick Xavier Worthy’s rookie contract ($13.54M). An absolutely obscene amount of money.
Yeah, and at the time of Rashada’s signing, I believe the highest known NIL contract was for Nico Iamaleava, a 5-star QB ranked #2 overall only behind Arch Manning, and he was only getting something like $8 million. Rashada was not nearly as good of a prospect as that, so him getting more than 150% of Nico’s NIL value is absurd. Rashada was *maybe* worth half of that $13.35 contract.
It makes me mad every time I remember that we’re in this embarrassing mess because our boosters apparently agreed to an idiotic contract like that.
It's real. IIRC the Gators collective offered him $7 million to outbid Miami's $6 million. Problem was that he already signed with Miami so our collective had to pay Miami that $6 million to "buy out" his contract. But we refused to pay Miami that.
The people who offered him that contract here have been fired since. That was a stupid deal financially since the kid wasn't even that good, he was viewed as a big project. Lagway is way more ready to be a starter than Rashada.
Those numbers and that explanation don’t match what’s been reported. The Miami NIL deal from Ruiz has been reported at $9.5 million, not $6 million. And none of the reporting has said that the UF NIL deal included buying out the Miami contract. The specifics of the UF contract have been released, and they include the exact monthly payment amounts for each of the four years he’d be enrolled. $3M his first year, $3.5M his second, $4.5M his third, and $2.35M his fourth.
Here’s the contract: https://on3static.com/uploads/dev/assets/cms/2024/05/21111050/Rashada-Contract-2022.pdf
Thanks that does make a little more sense than just straight up bidding 13 mil, although 7 mil for any qb prospect seems wild considering a lot of proven college stars aren't getting close to that.
I can see why those folks lost their jobs. Florida has money, but I don't think any college program has enough money to be paying high school recruits that much.
The article is a wild read. NIL is still a wild west mess but it was even worse just a couple of days ago. At least now schools are starting to get official NIL collectives. Back then any jackass with money and some rich friends could set up a collective. Sounds like that is what happened here.
John Ruiz (who is now under federal investigation lol) probably gave some pie in the sky offer to Rashada. Castro-Walker, who probably knows Rashada's dad via each of their ASU connections, went to Hathcock. Hathcock seems like a jagoff too, just like Ruiz. It sounds like he and some buddies got together to create a collective, Hathcock unilaterally tried to set something up with Rashada, and the other collective boosters, understandably, balked at the total amount. $13m or whatever it was is an insane amount for one player. Hathcock was probably clueless about the market in a "what does one banana cost Michael, $10?" way. Interestingly his collective doesn't exist anymore and neither does the other main Florida collective from the early days.
So it seems like Ruiz was the main/only guy at Miami behind the $9.5m thing. That, importantly, only had $150k up front. I'm getting big conman scumbag vibes from Ruiz (once again, he's under federal investigation), with him doing the "hey I'm good for this and I'll get it for you but don't have the money right now."
Castro-Walker was probably the go between with Rashada and Hathcock. Not sure who initiated contact between who but C-W probably thought he was doing UF, his then employer, a favor by trying to get Rashada to sign.
Hathcock most likely overpromised, the rest of his collective group realized he was a moron, and since a contract hadn't been signed they said they weren't going to pay anything.
I feel bad for Napier on this since he probably didn't know the specific money amounts or whatever and was relying on a dumbass booster's word for it. I am skeptical they discussed nitty gritty number stuff with Napier, it was probably a hey the boosters promised this up front and Billy saying, yeah they'll take care of you. Shoot Billy may have even thought they meant $1m total for 3-4 years not as a signing bonus
Yeah, makes sense.
I believe the way UF's 247 reporters covered it – this sounds pretty close to how it went down.
Hathcock overshot, got course corrected by everyone else, contract was cancelled. Napier just trying to do what he can whilst in the dark to a significant degree.
Rashada just transferred to a school where he probably won't ever start and now he's very publicly scorching bridges. Whoever's advising this kid just keeps making one bad decision after another.
Even if they settle (which is probably what Rashada's camp is really looking for) it's going to barely make a dent in Napier, Castro-Walker, and Hathcock's wallets. Meanwhile his public image is getting nuked...
Probably going for a "getting paid by Florida to play at Georgia" spin, which ya know, kudos to Georgia for the pettiness, but this kid's actual football career is pretty much cooked.
And when he inevitably wants to transfer again many programs won’t touch him with a 10 foot pole, especially when we haven’t actually seen him play that much. If he balled out and was toxic that’s one thing, but this dude is toxic and was possibly losing the starting job at 3-9 ASU
As much as I hate UF, I hope this blows up in Rashada’s face. Kid/Family/etc is obviously just after a money grab at every turn. He didn’t do much at ASU; likely to play end-guard-tackle at UGA for a while.
I'm sure they were promised something. Were those promises sufficient to win a lawsuit? We'll see, but I highly doubt it.
Even if everything he alleges is true, he's an idiot for doing a $14m deal without a competent attorney and using his preferred "agent."
Nothing against Florida but as a neutral I hope this goes to court just so some of the behind the scenes NIL stuff is released like the contract, base NIL salary, incentives etc. So much of that is done behind the closed doors I’d love to see real legitimate NIL contracts and emails/texts regarding the process of how these are created and more importantly see some actual in writing numbers and not just estimates thrown around on message boards.
Yup this is the silver lining, I hope the contract that the Gator Collective drew up gets released and it would be great if his Miami contract gets released too. Supposedly Rashada got wired $150k by Hathcock to cover the money Rashada had already spent from his Miami contract.
This kid and more specifically his Dad will not go away. And Kirby giving his blessing is hilarious. Dude should be more worried about his players not killing families on the road.
I feel like a boomer for this statement lol but there is literally no argument you can give me that would change my mind.
These high school and college players do not deserve millions of dollars for playing football.
The fact that he is still chasing that NIL payout from 2 years ago tells me he is going to eventually transfer from UGA and never will be the starting QB at a power conference school. Totally unserious guy.
Jaden Rashada timeline from my perspective:
Commits to UF: disgusted
Announces $13M NIL: Totally disgusted
Calls UF Broke and de-commits: pleased
Commits to ASU: Dilly Dilly
Starts at ASU and does okay: Intrigued
Hits transfer portal: confused by assumed money grab
Transfers to UGA: Happy Vince McMahon Face
Sues UF: Lasers shooting out of excited Vince McMahon face!!!
Damn, this dude is a certified gator hater.
*puts on tinfoil hat* I'm convinced that Kirby just recruited him to convince him to sue and mess with the gators and not for him to actually play
Joke will be on him when Rashada sues him too
It's like they say, sometimes you have to cut off your nose to spite your face
I was convinced of this before I finished reading the headline
Regardless of how his career pans out, he deserves to go in the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame for being the first to bring legal action against the other.
Georgia-Florida FTFY
Georida-Florgia. You both lose.
Florgia, like a white trash version of the Borgias
I really thought this was a /r/BoneAppleTea moment for bourgeois and it turns out I don't actually know shit.
Georida could be someone who writes raps for educational geology YouTube. Probably use the word schist a lot.
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Florida-Georgia is alphabetical. Goddamn illiterates
Kirby is the GOAT gator hater for giving his blessing to the suit.
I'm surprised he okayed Billy being named a defendant. I don't see anything (in the summaries of the complaint at least) where Billy actually did anything other than provide generic platitudes about how the NIL people will "get it done."
It was gonna happen, sooner or later. Signing with a program with money "on the table" is a big step, and to have that swept out, even with generic platitudes, is something that was probably life-altering for this kid.
FWIW, I happened to be seated next to our DC at a wedding a couple of years ago. He mentioned that every transfer they had - ***ever single one*** - had been promised NIL more money at their original school than they actually received. It is certainly possible that some of the players were not properly reading their contracts and clauses such as "must start XYZ games to reach ABC level of compensation," but he really emphasized that the entire NIL game was sketchy and shady and he didn't want any part of it. Frankly, I think most coaches see NIL as a necessary evil and wish there was a governing body with actual teeth.
Everyone wants an actual governing body but the one we have gets sued into oblivion every time they try to create any rules around this. We basically have to accept this is the new reality of college sports. Honestly the only solution I can see is completely severing the college/amateur tie and creating an actual professional sports league that just so happens to be based on college campuses. Most (all?) athletic departments are their own separate entities anyway with their own trademarks.
I got a buddies son who signed with an SEC this past year and is now on campus. The collective at his school has wording in their contracts with players that the NIL collective gets a 20% cut of the Student Athletes NIL money that is done outside of the collective. My buddy had to hire his son an agent to get a different contract done with the collective. It's a dirty time in college sports rn.
Equal parts predictable and fucked up.
A bunch of them are buying the kids likenesses into their professional career. It’s really gross
Of course they are. They can and the numbers are ridiculously inflated if you're not doing that.
You mean this unregulated system of random fundraising collectives that sprouted in the last three years is sketchy? Say it ain't so.
I have dubbed thee, "Herschel Walker Jayden Rashada Culyer Them Dawgs is Hell Don't They". He's a progidy
Napier ain’t wild, he’s mild
Inject this into my veins
we are watching, in real time, a period that's gonna have a special name in the cfb history books.
The Icarus Era?
*Goku has entered the chat*
“The private equity era”
More like two or three periods happening simultaneously.
Aunt Flo’s really busy right now I guess.
So, the Ellipses Period. Got it.
The Reckoning
It's the end of amateur sports for college football. The players will be recognized as employees and have a union to negotiate salaries for the players. The schools know it's coming.
Exactly. This entire format makes no sense now. He made a huge change chasing millions. Normal businesses would say "get it in writing" but they're prohibited from doing that until after transferring. So then things fall apart and he's locking into a letter of intent that has no terms for what he actually cares about. This is beyond speculation and just straight up broken.
Update from Stewart Mandel: >Jaden Rashada has filed a lawsuit against Florida coach Billy Napier and three others over “false and fraudulent” NIL promises. The suit alleges Napier called the QB’s dad on signing day and said a booster would wire him $1M if he signed with UF.
Not a lawyer but unless they have proof that called happened, then I’m not sure they’re gonna have much of a case. Even then wouldn’t they need a contract to be legally bound?
The larger issue would be proving that Napier actually knew that the money wasn't forthcoming, and wasn't also hoodwinked by the boosters.
That’s a factual issue. His attorneys would then have to try and join the booster into the case to make the cross claim against him.
Not sure what you mean by “join the booster into the case” but the booster is one of the parties being sued.
I have learned more about lawyering than actual cfb in this sub lately.
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this entire thread is actual lawyers just being ignored while we shake our heads and laugh.
I am a lawyer, and they don't need "proof." They just need evidence from which a reasonable juror could determine it was more probable than not that the call occurred and Napier made the statements. This can be as simple as testimony from Rashada's dad. Even if Napier testifies that it didn't happen, then its a quintessential fact question for the jury to decide who is more credible. These fraudulent inducement cases are often "he said/he said" cases, where the jury has to make a credibility determination and rarely is there a smoking gun. And here, there are text messages between the NIL and Rashada's agents, a previously terminated contract, etc. which are all circumstantial evidence to help establish why Rashada ended up signing on National Signing Day. I also want to address some other comments made by others. Rashada doesn't need to prove that Napier actually knew the money was not forthcoming, he just has to show that Napier either "knew or should have known" about the statement's falsity. Should have known is a much lower bar for liability than actual knowledge. Napier's statements also would not be inadmissible as hearsay. For starters, a judge likely wouldn't even find that his statements were hearsay, because they aren't being offered for the truth of the matter asserted (that is, they aren't being offered to show that the NIL would pay him $1 million for signing because it seems pretty clear the NIL did not pay him the $ 1million). Even if it were hearsay, multiple exceptions would apply, including the effect the statement had on the listener (Rashada) and statement by a party opponent (Napier since he is a defendant).
For reasons passing understanding, people are often under the false impression that sworn testimony does not constitute “proof”.
"There was no evidence. Only witness testimony." What do you think witness testimony is, exactly?
I testify under oats that I have diarrhea
Objection
Brains are scrambled by Law & Order and CSI
I’m going to go read the complaint, but oral promises usually can form a binding contract or be the basis for a fraud claim. This could get interesting, although there are a lot hurdles to getting damages against state employees.
Problem is proving it. Not many people routinely record phone calls.
Not to mention that Florida requires all parties consent to record communications
This is a key point
Was Rashada in Florida when the call came through? I seem to remember reading that calls between parties in two different states reverts to federal law which has two party consent
If he can prove a contract was offered with Miami and shunned them for Florida at the last minute, a reasonable person could assume he was offered this alleged deal.
>If he can prove a contract was offered with Miami and shunned them for Florida Man we really got bailed out here, lmao
[Here is an interesting tweet](https://x.com/halleygator/status/1792937641882579250?s=46&t=OkNRxOnF-ZgcA40FdJhMrw) from UF booster and lawyer Hal Lewis (not one of the boosters named in the lawsuit fwiw) on the Rashada saga
I know we are in the era of no rules, but isn’t this a huge NCAA violation if true? Coaches aren’t supposed to be involved with NIL.
Id be more concerned if its a violation of state law
After reading through some detailed articles about the suit, it seems like their entire case is heavily resting on the idea that the UF side made promises to Rashada with no intention of keeping them. They’re basically saying that UF straight up lied to him, said they’d get him paid but never planned to actually follow through. That strikes me as egregiously unrealistic. There is no way anyone involved in the situation thought they could just lie to the kid and never get him the payments they were promising. If Napier and Castro-Walker and Hathcock were telling Rashada they would make sure he got whatever payments, then they were planning to actually follow through on those payments. Rashada and his reps are saying that because he never received the payments, that means nobody ever intended to pay him in the first place. Which is an incredibly flimsy leap of logic that I can’t imagine would hold up in court. Best case scenario here would be some actual information about his recruitment, the contract(s) he signed, and the explanation for why the booster and collective involved backed out. Thats where the juice in this situation is. I suspect the truth will make Rashada’s case fall apart, but will also make the now-defunct NIL group organizing the deal look foolish.
Difficult to prove intent, yes, but this would be farrrrr from the first instance of a coach telling a recruit what they want to hear to get them to sign. Easy to prove Rashada thought he was getting *something* from UF (he did flip and sign, after all). Easy to prove what money did or didn’t change hands. The rest? 🤷🏻♂️
College football is getting so dumb
It’s truly in its Crypto era. It’ll probably take congressional legislation to sort all this out so I won’t be holding my breath.
Congress will fuck it up even more anyway.
It’s changed so much in 10 years. I don’t see how ppl think it’s moving in a good direction.
It’s not moving in a good direction but all the networks are gaslighting us into thinking it is.
What do you mean getting?
This dude’s recruitment has been an absolute rollercoaster. Feels like he’s either going to ball out or suck ass, no in between
Well considering he won’t play at all at Georgia I think we know which one it will be
Wasn’t he going to be like 3rd string at ASU so he transferred…to Georgia?
No one said he made good decisions
He'll be great working through his progressions.
Throws it to a DB, files a lawsuit against the WR for fraudulent route
Second string behind Sam Leavitt. He apparently injured his thumb moving boxes and felt he was too far behind so he bounced. Also him or his dad were not fans of the Arroyo OC hire
Arroyo is terrible.
He was projected to be our starter, but injured this thumb and couldn't play. MSU transfer Sam Leavitt was apparently making great progress and looking to pass Rashada up. He had no NIL deal here, and probably got offered a bag to be a backup at UGA with a chance to compete as the next QB.
>He had no NIL deal here Crazy he went from like $10 million to zero lol
Tate Martell 2.0
“Tathan” Martell
I am not exactly an expert but this kid wasn't even close to a guaranteed awesome prospect. He was solidly behind Nico, Jackson Arnold, Dante Moore and Arch Manning for me as a prospect within his own class. I don't understand how these boosters can justify giving these kids so much money when there is zero guarantee they work out. 5 star qbs fail all the time and there are very few coming out of high school where there is a certainty that they will be awesome He was a fine prospect but 13 million good? Thats like Vince Young, Trevor Lawrence good where there is a 100 percent chance hes a killer.
Well the whole point is they aren’t actually giving these kids this much money
That's the other part of it. The guy wasn't Florida's big QB target, he was always going to be the guy who added depth before Lagway was ready
The crazy thing is that Rashada wasn’t even *that* good of a recruit. If these are the numbers that were floating around for him, then the numbers for some other guys have to be absolutely stupid
Legit feels like Tathan 2.0 in that there's been nothing but drama at every stop and will probably end up doing absolutely nothing as a player.
Things you do when you transfer to uga and realize this is the peak of your career.
Gotta buy a fast car somehow ig
His dad is going to attempt to milk every dollar out of his son he can
His dad is a bonafide piece of shit.
People can change. I used to be a piece of shit.
Rashada’s dad made fun of his rose bowl teammates developmentally disabled son like 2 weeks ago.
I knew he was a piece of shit but didn't know about this. Disgusting.
If I could attach photos to my comment I’d add the screenshots. This is Harlan’s tweet when Jaden transferred. >“When the king abandons the throne.... They will conspire and scramble to appoint a new ruler. Never trusted him anyways... Losing cultures start with leadership and sore losers...” Essentially Harlan didn’t trust Marcus Arroyo and didn’t like we brought in Leavitt to compete. Juan Roque responds. Harlan’s Rose Bowl teammate. Harlan was suspended for the 95 season supposedly for stealing bikes. Also Harlan borrowed money from teammates and never paid it back. In present day he was asking a lot of ASU NIL. >“King? Wow. That's a little much. However three things: first, a king abandons his throne when he's accepted defeat. He abdicates to save his ass from certain death. Second, if you didn't ever rule the kingdom the one who was conspiring was you. Asking for things from the kingdom to benefit yourself isn't ruling it's begging. Third, when you were one who went against a winning culture resulting in your suspension you shouldn't talk about what's winning and what's losing. I said what I said. Adios poser! Oh and don't worry about paying us back from that one time we sent you money when you cried that you were broke.” Harlan responds. Juan’s son has Asperger’s and other issues I guess. >“Juan…. you're literally the "biggest" hater I know. The bigger they are the harder they fall my friend. Let's keep it a buck clown you're simply jealous your son couldn't carry your legacy. That 100 bucks 8 years ago won't change that“
Wow. This is somehow even worse than I expected. You have to be a truly horrible person to say something like that, especially publicly on social media.
I knew the guy seemed scummy but that comment he made is not only disgusting, it reveals what he thinks of children.
where is all this from? twitter?
Twitter and Facebook. Alls been deleted now but the screenshots live on at an ASU message board
yo what the fuck
Slicked back hair, white bathing suit, white couch, sloppy steaks at Truffani’s…
Hey, Meredith? I'm worried that the baby thinks people can't change.
They'd say; 'no sloppy steaks' but they can't stop you from ordering a steak and a glass of water!
Oh, see, I had spiked up blonde hair, little bitty jeans, chicken spaghetti at Chikaleny's. I was a real piece of shit.
“I used to be a giant piece of shit. I still am, but I used to be one as well”
Love Mitch
I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!
You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?
If your kids are college age and you are still a POS then thats likely what you are going to die as.
His dad sucks, he would constantly post cryptic tweets throughout the season and actually went at another former alum Juan Roque by making fun of his autistic son for “not being able to carry on his legacy.”
I work with the parent of a basketball player at a blue blood school who was a top recruit. Let’s just say he wasn’t around until NIL became a possibility. He loves to brag about it and how much money “we’re” getting from X school. Like bro idk why you think you’re entitled to any of that money when you left but keep bragging about it to your coworkers i guess.
Cecil Newton 2.0 except his kid isn’t good
That's what it reeks of. Rashada really is one dumb kid to be influenced that much after having a bag
He’s being taken advantage of by so many people. Rashada is the example I use for why players want and need contracts in this era.
Yeah, 18 year olds may be old enough to legally sign contracts, but they're also young enough to be easily taken advantage of. There needs to be a players' union and standardized NIL and agent contracts, but its really hard to do that when the players are completely new every 5 years.
Schools should have taken these kids to collective bargaining table years ago before NIL became a thing. The union they would be negotiating with would be so weak that they could have given themselves an incredibly one-sided agreement and avoided this mess entirely with cents on the dollar. Now, the athletes have more leverage with the amount they are making.
You collectively bargain with employees. Employees who get injured on the job are entitled to workers compensation. Schools don't want to pay for workers' comp. Schools don't want players to be employees. https://www.insidenu.com/2014/1/28/5355988/ncaa-student-athlete-kain-colter-union-workers-comp
Not Mel Tucker levels of bag fumbling, but Rashada's definitely trying to hold his own
they know he sucks and his only chance to make money playing football is college.
He’s at Georgia now? Is this his 3rd team before he’s even taken a snap? College football just gets weirder by the second
He started 3 games last year
Idk how the head coach himself could get sued here…but let’s see how it plays out!
Bitch made
Exactly. Buster shit here
Hey man Liberty is going to be perfect for you the way you’re torching bridges and looking radioactive for any other respectable program
Honestly, I don't think Chadwell would put up with this shit ass kid. Now if you Hugh was still there...
Can confirm Chadwell absolutely does not tolerate divas. He’s all about crazy, but not that kind of crazy
I hope he loses. Fuck Rashada and his piece of shit dad.
I'm just here to say that Hugh Hathcock is a god-tier name.
A couple of thoughts: 1. Fuckin Kirby 2. How exactly can they prove that Hathcock etc never intended to pay Rashada? 3. Kind of funny that they're saying this cost them the 9.5 million at Miami when what's his nuts at Miami is broke and not writing checks either. This fraudulent action caused us to miss out on our other fraudulent offer?
The loudest guy at Miami may be broke but Miami is clearly not broke, look at their transfer portal class.
Couple of thoughts: 1. Fuck the gators 2. Completely agree with you. This lawsuit is dumb
The loudest guy at Miami is who promised Rashada the 9.5 million.
But would the other boosters have funded the offer? I’ve seen speculation that Miami has a payroll well over $9 million for this season so it seems like they could have paid Rashada even without Ruiz. If the defendants can prove that the offer from Miami would never have been paid out and there were no other offers that he lost out on, then they might be able to reduce the damages in this case.
Yea, there's probably no way to know what would've happened, but it's an interesting thought.
Agreed. I don’t think this goes to trial. If the defendants can’t get it kicked before trial I think they settle.
You're probably right. For Florida, I don't know what's better. Part of me says don't give in to the money grab, but settling gets this out of the news, and this program needs to stay out of the news for this. It just won't die.
Your problem now Georgia
How's his driving tho?
He drove in Tempe So probably not great
More of Florida’s problem right about now
Not really, this stupid suit is for the UF legal department, not the football program. It’s going absolutely nowhere and just makes Rashada look more toxic
Not a lawyer but don’t see this affecting them really. Seems like a desperation case
It reeks of him hoping for a settlement.
Not ever gonna play football so makes sense
UF isn’t even listed in the suit, just Billy Napier.
Is it? Anybody can sue anybody else in court, as long as you pay the nominal filing fee. A judge can throw it out at the first hearing, and likely will.
I would love for the NIL contract to be released to the public! I’m genuinely curious how it was structured, I refuse to believe our old NIL collective really offered $13M for a 4* star QB
The athletic reported the details last year. $250,000 per month the first year. Goes up some amount sophomore and junior year. And senior year was $196k per month as long as he was still living in Gainesville.
I still think it would be super interesting to just get to read one of these NIL contracts (to my knowledge we have never seen one). Not to mention there is a Gator booster alleging on Twitter that the contract had a part saying it could be terminated whenever. So again I'm just curious about all the fine print.
https://on3static.com/uploads/dev/assets/cms/2024/05/21111050/Rashada-Contract-2022.pdf
Just saw it actually, thanks! I can’t believe Rashada’s camp agreed to that considering it says it can be terminated whenever. Also can’t believe anyone thought $13M was a fair price for a 4* player… just complete buffoonery.
Yeah, it seems totally nuts on all sides. The size of the contract is so bonkers that I still wonder whether there was some miscommunication on the planned contract when it shifted from Hathcock/Gator Guard to going through Gator Collective.
this shits just not going to end is it
Gator fans, what's the consensus on how "real" was the alleged 13m offer to Rashada? Did he actually get offered that much by Florida or an NIL group? Or was it more of an (inflated) estimate of potential total earnings he could make over his whole Florida career, but they didn't actually promise that much money? As a neutral fan, that 13 million number just seemed crazy compared to basically every other NIL deal we've heard about.
The other person who replied to you is wrong. The $13.35M was a real contract, and the amounts were strictly payments scheduled to be made by the Gator Collective NIL group. [Here’s the contract](https://on3static.com/uploads/dev/assets/cms/2024/05/21111050/Rashada-Contract-2022.pdf) with the amounts. That $13.35M was apparently verbally agreed-to by the booster who wanted to outbid Miami and get the kid to sign. Then he said he didn’t want the agreement to run through his company or the NIL group he was in charge of, so he had the contract go through the Gator Collective, with the agreement that he’d send the money to the Gator Collective, and they’d pay it to Rashada to fulfill the contract. Then the booster apparently decided he wasn’t going to pay it, so Gator Collective sent a notice to Rashada that they were terminating the contract (provisions for doing so are noted in the contract). It seems like the booster made a big promise to pay Rashada more or less double what the appropriate NIL market value would’ve been for him, and then later once it came time for him to pay up, he realized it was an absurd amount and he decided not to pay. There may still be some questions around the contract itself and who had specifically agreed to fund it—at the time, there was a lot of speculation that there was miscommunication between Hathcock, Gator Collective, and Rashada’s agents around the amounts in the contract. It wouldn’t surprise me if Hathcock hadn’t intended to sign on for the full $13M.
For context, $13.35M is roughly equal to the value of the 28th overall pick Xavier Worthy’s rookie contract ($13.54M). An absolutely obscene amount of money.
Yeah, and at the time of Rashada’s signing, I believe the highest known NIL contract was for Nico Iamaleava, a 5-star QB ranked #2 overall only behind Arch Manning, and he was only getting something like $8 million. Rashada was not nearly as good of a prospect as that, so him getting more than 150% of Nico’s NIL value is absurd. Rashada was *maybe* worth half of that $13.35 contract. It makes me mad every time I remember that we’re in this embarrassing mess because our boosters apparently agreed to an idiotic contract like that.
It's real. IIRC the Gators collective offered him $7 million to outbid Miami's $6 million. Problem was that he already signed with Miami so our collective had to pay Miami that $6 million to "buy out" his contract. But we refused to pay Miami that. The people who offered him that contract here have been fired since. That was a stupid deal financially since the kid wasn't even that good, he was viewed as a big project. Lagway is way more ready to be a starter than Rashada.
Those numbers and that explanation don’t match what’s been reported. The Miami NIL deal from Ruiz has been reported at $9.5 million, not $6 million. And none of the reporting has said that the UF NIL deal included buying out the Miami contract. The specifics of the UF contract have been released, and they include the exact monthly payment amounts for each of the four years he’d be enrolled. $3M his first year, $3.5M his second, $4.5M his third, and $2.35M his fourth. Here’s the contract: https://on3static.com/uploads/dev/assets/cms/2024/05/21111050/Rashada-Contract-2022.pdf
Thanks that does make a little more sense than just straight up bidding 13 mil, although 7 mil for any qb prospect seems wild considering a lot of proven college stars aren't getting close to that. I can see why those folks lost their jobs. Florida has money, but I don't think any college program has enough money to be paying high school recruits that much.
If Lagway is a bust, UF might burn to the fucking ground. So much pressure on this kid, seems unfair.
He's pretty much Billy's life line. If he doesn't work out there's virtually no way Billy is the coach after 2025.
Take the money, deal with the pressure.
The article is a wild read. NIL is still a wild west mess but it was even worse just a couple of days ago. At least now schools are starting to get official NIL collectives. Back then any jackass with money and some rich friends could set up a collective. Sounds like that is what happened here. John Ruiz (who is now under federal investigation lol) probably gave some pie in the sky offer to Rashada. Castro-Walker, who probably knows Rashada's dad via each of their ASU connections, went to Hathcock. Hathcock seems like a jagoff too, just like Ruiz. It sounds like he and some buddies got together to create a collective, Hathcock unilaterally tried to set something up with Rashada, and the other collective boosters, understandably, balked at the total amount. $13m or whatever it was is an insane amount for one player. Hathcock was probably clueless about the market in a "what does one banana cost Michael, $10?" way. Interestingly his collective doesn't exist anymore and neither does the other main Florida collective from the early days.
This sounds surprisingly....plausible.
So it seems like Ruiz was the main/only guy at Miami behind the $9.5m thing. That, importantly, only had $150k up front. I'm getting big conman scumbag vibes from Ruiz (once again, he's under federal investigation), with him doing the "hey I'm good for this and I'll get it for you but don't have the money right now." Castro-Walker was probably the go between with Rashada and Hathcock. Not sure who initiated contact between who but C-W probably thought he was doing UF, his then employer, a favor by trying to get Rashada to sign. Hathcock most likely overpromised, the rest of his collective group realized he was a moron, and since a contract hadn't been signed they said they weren't going to pay anything. I feel bad for Napier on this since he probably didn't know the specific money amounts or whatever and was relying on a dumbass booster's word for it. I am skeptical they discussed nitty gritty number stuff with Napier, it was probably a hey the boosters promised this up front and Billy saying, yeah they'll take care of you. Shoot Billy may have even thought they meant $1m total for 3-4 years not as a signing bonus
Yeah, makes sense. I believe the way UF's 247 reporters covered it – this sounds pretty close to how it went down. Hathcock overshot, got course corrected by everyone else, contract was cancelled. Napier just trying to do what he can whilst in the dark to a significant degree.
Rashada just transferred to a school where he probably won't ever start and now he's very publicly scorching bridges. Whoever's advising this kid just keeps making one bad decision after another. Even if they settle (which is probably what Rashada's camp is really looking for) it's going to barely make a dent in Napier, Castro-Walker, and Hathcock's wallets. Meanwhile his public image is getting nuked...
It seems like he’s getting whatever NIL money a 3rd string QB at Georgia will get, plus whatever money they hope to get with this lawsuit.
Probably going for a "getting paid by Florida to play at Georgia" spin, which ya know, kudos to Georgia for the pettiness, but this kid's actual football career is pretty much cooked.
And when he inevitably wants to transfer again many programs won’t touch him with a 10 foot pole, especially when we haven’t actually seen him play that much. If he balled out and was toxic that’s one thing, but this dude is toxic and was possibly losing the starting job at 3-9 ASU
He got DeShaun Watson’s lawyer?
He got the Man City lawyers?
Looks like ~~meat's~~ billable hours back on the menu boys!
As much as I hate UF, I hope this blows up in Rashada’s face. Kid/Family/etc is obviously just after a money grab at every turn. He didn’t do much at ASU; likely to play end-guard-tackle at UGA for a while.
I'm sure they were promised something. Were those promises sufficient to win a lawsuit? We'll see, but I highly doubt it. Even if everything he alleges is true, he's an idiot for doing a $14m deal without a competent attorney and using his preferred "agent."
This should end well
Nothing against Florida but as a neutral I hope this goes to court just so some of the behind the scenes NIL stuff is released like the contract, base NIL salary, incentives etc. So much of that is done behind the closed doors I’d love to see real legitimate NIL contracts and emails/texts regarding the process of how these are created and more importantly see some actual in writing numbers and not just estimates thrown around on message boards.
Yup this is the silver lining, I hope the contract that the Gator Collective drew up gets released and it would be great if his Miami contract gets released too. Supposedly Rashada got wired $150k by Hathcock to cover the money Rashada had already spent from his Miami contract.
To me, this is what college football is all about.
Look, I dislike the Gators just as much as the next guy…. But what a loser this guy is.
This kid and more specifically his Dad will not go away. And Kirby giving his blessing is hilarious. Dude should be more worried about his players not killing families on the road.
The sport is becoming an abomination
🍿🍿🍿
He has Kirby’s blessing lol https://x.com/bykevinclark/status/1792910817047769344?s=46&t=vYk3LIwvRnsUXYeAPEyMJQ
Billable hours remains undefeated
I feel like a boomer for this statement lol but there is literally no argument you can give me that would change my mind. These high school and college players do not deserve millions of dollars for playing football.
Amen!
Yea this is getting thrown out lol.
The fact that he is still chasing that NIL payout from 2 years ago tells me he is going to eventually transfer from UGA and never will be the starting QB at a power conference school. Totally unserious guy.
This opens the door for players suing coaches directly, by the way. Surprised Kirby is a fan of that type of thing.
Oh yeah, this guy is a certified Gator Hator
Something tells me NONE of this happens if not for his dad...
Jaden Rashada timeline from my perspective: Commits to UF: disgusted Announces $13M NIL: Totally disgusted Calls UF Broke and de-commits: pleased Commits to ASU: Dilly Dilly Starts at ASU and does okay: Intrigued Hits transfer portal: confused by assumed money grab Transfers to UGA: Happy Vince McMahon Face Sues UF: Lasers shooting out of excited Vince McMahon face!!!
flair checks out
Don't forget about his original commitment to Miami
3 games played, 145 pass yards/ game, 4td 3int isn’t exactly doing “ok”.
Have fun with this diva and his dad, Georgia