Imagine, if you will, that Arkansas football is off to one of its best season starts in years. That part shouldn’t be too hard since the program is a Tyrone Broden touchdown catch or Kyle Ramsey field goal away from currently sitting at 4-0.
The fans are giddy, just like they were in 2021 after the 4-0 start, except this time there’s no monstrously difficult tilt with No. 2 Georgia coming up as the next game. In 2024, things feel even more promising with no Alabama or Georgia on the slate and a realistic shot at the College Football Playoffs on the horizon since the field has expanded from four teams to 12.
With things humming on both offense and defense and all the stars healthy, everything is setting up for a feel-good Cinderella run on par with Houston Nutt’s 8-0 start in 1998. Perhaps even better. After so much pain and heartache, everything, it seems, is finally falling in line for poor ol’ Arkansas.
Then, just days before a trip to JerryWorld to take on Texas A&M, star quarterback Taylen Green makes an announcement: he’s sitting out. He leaves his reasoning vague, but it’s clear that not getting the NIL pay he expected is at the heart of the issue.
And just like that, the good times in Razorback Nation come screeching to a halt.
Green’s sit-out would have nothing to do with COVID or nagging injuries, as was apparently the case with Rakeem Boyd quitting the team in November 2020. No, this is just a matter of cold hard cash, which makes things even worse. Did Green really have to derail the momentum of an entire program – and its head coach – just because of a few tens of thousands of dollars?
Of course this hypothetical situation is far-fetched because from all accounts Taylen Green has shown high character. Since arriving from Boise State last winter, he’s proven to be one of the leaders the Arkansas football program so desperately needed. (He even caught some flak from DJ Williams for being too rah-rah this spring.)
UNLV Football Wakes to a Nightmare
Unfortunately a situation very similar to this just happened to Barry Odom’s UNLV football squad, a team so full of Arkansas ties that it’s been dubbed the “UNLV Razorbacks.”
Late Tuesday night, UNLV starting quarterback Matt Sluka decided to make real what had previously only seemed like a plot premise pulled from an episode of Black Mirror: The College Football Dystopian Future Edition. He announced on “X” he was sitting out the rest of the season, choosing to redshirt instead because “I committed to UNLV based on certain representations that were made to me, which were not upheld after I enrolled. Despite discussions, it became clear that these commitments would not be fulfilled in the future.”
Boy oh boy. That’s going to make for some seriously awkward quarterback room meetings going forward.
Kidding aside, you have to feel for Barry Odom and the rest of the UNLV football program, which includes former Razorbacks like Jalen Catalon, Jalen St. John and Jackson Woodard. Everything was lining up for the Rebels to make a serious run to be the mid-major program making the College Football Playoffs this fall.
The Rebels have won three games to start a season for the first time since 1984. They’re ranked No. 23 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, their first appearance in one of the two major polls since moving to Division I in 1978, as On3’s Pete Nakos points out.
As Razorback fans know from Odom’s three years as the Arkansas defensive coordinator, he is very much in the vein of the old-school, blue-collar football coach. All head coaches have to do some promotional work, but he made sure that his was as bad-ass country as possible when he risked breaking his neck on a bucking bull this summer. As an “actions speak louder than words” guy, he doesn’t seem especially excited to do a lot of promotion beyond that.
That’s one reason he and Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman have gotten along so well together, and why some Razorback fans even feel like Odom would make a lot of sense as a Pittman successor one day. But just like Pittman, Odom has had to learn to navigate the Wild Wild West of NIL-fueled college football.
BoAS Asks Pittman about Matt Sluka
That was necessary to attract transfers like Sluka. “At UNLV, what we have to offer for a guy looking to finish their career in one or two years — it’s pretty appealing,” he recently told On3.
“We’re aggressive in the NIL world and the city of Vegas, but we also understand we’re not going to compete if that’s the only thing they’re looking for. We’re not going to be able to be able to compete with some of the schools that have a bankroll of unlimited resources. That’s not us.”
Later on Wednesday morning, Pete Thamel reported on “X” that “Sluka was verbally promised a minimum of $100,000 from a UNLV assistant coach for transferring there. None of that money was paid,” according to Sluka’s agent, Marcus Cromartie of Equity Sports.
Thamel goes on to report:
“Once Sluka enrolled there, there was no effort by the UNLV’s collective to formalize a contract at that amount. Months after Sluka enrolled and Cormartie made multiple efforts with the staff and school to address the issue.
He said the school and collective came back with a contract of $3,000 per month for the next four months. That’s $88,000 less than what Cromartie said UNLV verbally promised up front.
The only money Sluka has received from UNLV, per Cromartie, is a $3,000 re-location stipend for his move. Cromartie said there was never an ask for more money after UNLV’s hot start, only the initial amount he was promised up front.
Our own Andrew Hutchinson asked Sam Pittman on Wednesday’s SEC teleconference whether he’s concerned that Matt Sluka quitting for NIL reasons would trigger a trend in college football. Pittman said “we all are concerned about it” and then elaborated on how important is is to be aware of how much the full story can be told: “The one thing about a football coach is you can’t really comment on those things and the kid can. The kid can, the agent can, whoever can, but you can’t. So a lot of times, the real story is somewhere in between.”
“That’s the thing about being a coach. You can’t really have an opinion on those things because you’ll get crucified in the media and all that.”
Sure enough, not long after Pittman’s insight, another part of the story did emerge:
“Matthew Sluka’s agent, Marcus Cromartie of Equity Sports, first introduced himself via email to UNLV collective officials in late August, Sine says,” Dellenger continued. “Cromartie wrote to officials that he was seeking more NIL opportunities thru the collective for his client.”
“However, Sine said Cromartie is not a registered agent in the state of Nevada. Because of this, he advised Cromartie/Sluka to discuss the situation directly with the coaching staff until Cromartie registers in the state.”
Matt Sluka Did Something Incredible Last Year
Sluka, who came to UNLV from the football juggernaut that is Holy Cross, likely knows he doesn’t have the brightest NFL future. If he was a legit prospect, he wouldn’t jeopardize his reputation among potential future employers at the NFL level by doing something that first made it appear like he holding his college team hostage.
Instead, he knows that this season may be his best shot at banking off his football talents.
Before Thamel’s report, it looked like if he didn’t squeeze everything he could out of UNLV now, when he has the most leverage considering the team’s start, he probably wouldn’t have a better opportunity down the line. That would make sense from a purely economic standpoint. But pure economics isn’t why Sluka started playing football in the first place, and it sure as hell isn’t why his teammates have put in so much sweat and tears for Odom trying to build a Top 12 national team beside him.
“Supposedly Sluka didn’t receive as much money as he was promised and recently was offered more from another school,” columnist Mike Farrell wrote early Wednesday morning before Thamel’s report. “UNLV isn’t known to offer much NIL money which is one thing, which Sluka knew, but who and how much did someone offer a quarterback who is completing 43.8% of his passes? That isn’t known right now, but there is no way that he was offered enough to make his decision sensible and morally just.”
Last year, Matt Sluka set a Division I record for quarterbacks by churning out 330 yards on the ground in one game. Clearly, the man can motor. After the Pandora’s Box he’s opened with this move, the fifth-year senior has finally found a national spotlight put on his notable running.
Only this time, according to a source for the 247Sports reporter below, it appeared he was running away from his responsibilities.
However, if UNLV’s NIL collective low-balled Sluka by the amount of money his agent says it did, then his actions are more understandable. It’s clear that he is frustrated and had certain expectations based on what was said to him regardless of what was actually put down in writing. It’s unfortunate it had to come to this for both Odom and the UNLV football program at large. (It’s also going to be unfortunate for Sluka’s agent if he ends up getting charged with a misdemeanor because he is unlicensed in the state of Nevada.)
The whole ordeal is developing into a “he said, she said” saga that is a much, much bigger version of Razorback offensive lineman Keyshawn Blackstock apparently sitting out for a practice during fall camp because of an issue with his NIL payment.
Odom doesn’t have time to pay attention to all the specifics of each NIL deal his players make. No head football coach has that kind of bandwidth. That’s why some college programs are starting to hire NIL general managers.
These new GMs are only part of the solution to a far-ranging administrative mess of which Odom’s nightmare is only the latest example.
Barry Odom Catches Heat from Sluka
Talking to ESPN on Wednesday, Matt Sluka’s father said the actual amount of money in question for his son takes a backseat in importance to the principle of the matter: coaches and collectives should fulfill their promises. “He’s not the first athlete to have this happen. We’ve heard it from a million kids that they don’t get their money,” Bob Sluka told ESPN.
“We’re not going to have Barry Odom just stand up and say, ‘F you, I’m not paying you, get your ass out on the field.’”
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