Price of business keeps going up for elite quarterbacks

Courting a quarterback has never been more involved.

For Michigan to flip five-star Bryce Underwood, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, on behalf of his wife who is a Michigan alum, ponied up a reported $12 million. Barstool Sports millionaire Dave Portnoy started a marketing deal with the Belleville, Mich., standout and was promoting his Black Friday merchandise collaboration with Underwood on Tuesday.

Earlier this season, under massive frustration at Michigan’s quarterback play, Portnoy said he’d pay $2-3 million per year in NIL to get the top quarterback to Ann Arbor and even said he talked with Michigan coach Sherrone Moore about his proposal.

The NIL deal from LSU looks like child’s play compared to what Michigan did to get Underwood, the No. 2 prospect in the 2025 class.

Five-star quarterback Julian Lewis had been committed to USC for more than a year but in recent days, the Carrollton, Ga., standout flipped to Colorado.

Part of it was because of coach Deion Sanders and offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur but one would be in a 2020 mindset to think that’s all that came with the flip. According to a source, the Lewis NIL deal is quite extensive and covers much ground financially and otherwise.

Even before Lewis flipped from USC, a source said the Trojans would be “fine” at quarterback in this class as the orchestration happened to flip former Texas A&M commit Husan Longstreet to USC just as Lewis was leaving for Colorado.

Are these the table stakes now to get one of the best quarterbacks in each recruiting class?

The revenue sharing model is coming into college football and no one knows yet how that will affect the recruiting landscape.

Compared to some of these lucrative NIL deals, that money might look like chump change to some of these elite quarterbacks. NIL along with revenue from the school could make a pretty payday.

One of the last quarterbacks to make their final decisions could be four-star lefty Jaron Sagapolutele, who canceled his Georgia visit this weekend and will decide between sticking with Cal or flipping to Oregon.

The Ewa Beach (Hawaii) Campbell standout was back in Berkeley this past weekend, loved being around “my coaches” he said and he fulfilled a lifelong dream of meeting the one and only Aaron Rodgers.

If Brady talked to Underwood about playing at Michigan, Rodgers at least paid Sagapolutele a compliment and recruited a little for the Golden Bears.

“It was like a dream come true,” Sagapolutele said. “Just seeing one of the people I look up to and him loving my dropbacks and my throwing form was a blessing.”

Will it be enough to keep the four-star from flipping to Oregon where Sagapolutele also idolized Marcus Mariota and Dillon Gabriel growing up? Only time will tell.

And the quarterback race might not be over yet.

North Carolina fired coach Mack Brown effective at the end of the season so four-star quarterback commit Bryce Baker has a decision to make as Penn State and others have worked to flip him.

LSU had reached out to gauge interest in Tennessee commit George MacIntyre but he said he’s locked in with the Vols. Arizona commit Robert McDaniel is still being pursued by others. LSU and Texas A&M need quarterbacks but that go go the way of the transfer portal.

And the coaching carousel hasn’t been kicked into high gear yet as even if many Power Four head coaches don’t get the boot there will be a considerable amount of coordinator movement which could upset the apple cart again.

With all the talk of flips and multi-million dollar deals and getting money from Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, and Lamborghinis and just an incredible amount paid for to land an elite quarterback sits Tavien St. Clair, the No. 1 player in the 2025 class.

An Ohio kid who committed to Ohio State in June 2023 and didn’t play games, didn’t commit and de-commit and re-commit and play the recruiting game. Sure he’s getting NIL money but a bigger package comes later, in the NFL.

St. Clair is the antithesis in a class where five-star players are still shopping for bigger and bigger NIL deals. What a bore.