College football is no longer an amateur sport and the alleged price tag for Colorado State quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi represents the insanity of the transfer portal era. Head coach Jay Norvell is furious.
Our top 12 players on our team have all had offers to go other places. It’s really frustrating for me as a guy that’s been in this business for over 30 years to really see the misinformation that kids are getting and really the poor decision-making that’s coming of it.
— Jay Norvell, via the Coloradoan
Fowler-Nicolosi, a former three-star recruit in the college football recruiting Class of 2022, has been good but not necessarily great for the Rams. The redshirt freshman threw for 3,460 yards and 22 touchdowns on a 62.1% completion clip this year, which is pretty solid. However, he also threw 16 interceptions and finished with the 87th-best QBR in the country.
Meanwhile, Colorado State won just five games. Meh.
Despite the relative mediocrity, Norvell claims that Fowler-Nicolosi was offered $600,000 to leave Fort Collins for another program. Uhhhhh……. WHAT?!
A quarterback who threw 16 picks and missed out on a bowl game is apparently worth more than half of a million dollars. That, if true, is bananas!
The other part of the craziness revolves around the unknown. There is so much uncertainty surrounding the portal and Name, Image and Likeness figures. Nothing is real. It’s all an illusion.
Norvell could absolutely be lying or, at the very least, inflating the number. We will never know, because no other program is going to come out and say “yep, that was us! We tried to poach Fowler-Nicolosi with a $600K offer.”
This is the new reality of the current era. Money is flowing, but nobody knows what is real.
Unfortunately, smaller schools (in terms of status) like Colorado State are getting hit the hardest. As soon as one of their best players plays well, he is hit with a decision about whether to leave.
Programs with greater NIL backing are able to pay more for better talent, which forces coaches like Norvell to re-recruit his entire roster at the end of each season. In many instances, it’s a lost cause.
However, in this instance, the alleged $600,000 quarterback re-pledge his commitment to Colorado State. Fowler-Nicolosi supposedly turned down the lucrative NIL offer to stay put.