No, North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye was not offered a $5 million NIL deal to move away from the Tar Heels.
Maye dropped those rumors on Thursday, one of which was pushed by Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi. He’s staying with North Carolina.
“Those rumors weren’t really true,” says Maye. “Pitt’s coach eventually brought that out. I don’t know what that was about. You must enter the transfer portal to talk to these schools and hear these offers. For me, I think college football is going to be a mess. They’ll have to do something. Nothing was offered to me or my family directly from any of these other schools. Nothing was said or offered to the Mayes.”
Maye has been the target of several transfer rumors following his breakout season this fall. He threw for 4,115 yards and 35 touchdowns with just seven interceptions as a freshman. Maye also helped lead the Tar Heels to the ACC championship game and has undoubtedly made herself a top quarterback in the 2024 NFL draft.
One such rumor claimed that Maye had been awarded a significant amount of money from other schools in NIL deals, though nothing specific was revealed. Narduzzi claimed earlier this week that Maye was offered $5 million to transfer by two different schools, but he would not say who the schools were.
However, that just wasn’t the case.
“Some people texted my high school coach about it,” Maye said. “That’s mainly what happened. People reached out to some of my representatives and NIL media people.”
Still, it’s more than any possible money for Maye.
Both his parents went to school in North Carolina and he lives with his brother, Beau, who went on to play on the basketball team. Their older brother, Luke, also pitched basketball for the Tar Heels and hit a buzzer-beater to send them to the Final Four in 2017.
“It wouldn’t sit well, especially with my whole family…” he said of switching. “Switching over after all the Mayes have been through wouldn’t represent what college means to me or how much it means to me to go there. It would ruin the mojo and everything we built there. That Carolina blue is special. There is no other color in the world that has so much meaning.”
