Miami and Florida’s $11 million battle over a QB recruit | College Football Enquirer

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss 4-star QB recruit Jaden Rashada’s decision to commit to Miami despite a report that the ‘Gator Collective’ at Florida offered him $1.5 million more.

Video Transcript

[SPORTS-RELATED SOUND EFFECTS]

DAN WETZEL: Quarterback recruiting sorting itself out, Pat.

PAT FORDE: Yeah.

DAN WETZEL: The big names are coming off the board. Obviously, Arch Manning last week. We had another on Sunday, and it started a kerfuffle.

PAT FORDE: We're not opposed to kerfuffles here. This was a good kerfuffle, too, man.

DAN WETZEL: We welcome it. Good neighborhood, Donnybrook, for Jaden Rashada, who hails from Pittsburg, California and is considered-- let's see-- 24/7 as the seventh-best quarterback, but number 45 nationally, so very good. He's one ahead of Eli Holstein, who's heading to Alabama.

Highly coveted recruit is headed to the U, giving a huge boost to Mario Cristobal's program, and a potential elite quarterback that, well, everyone's always looking for. The rumor mill on the internet and on this on-three deal is that Miami mega booster John Ruiz is giving him $9.5 million. But the Florida Gator Collective was willing to offer $11 million.

And he's-- then the Gator Collective said that the report is all wrong and that they never spoke to Caspino about Jaden Rashada. And then Ruiz says it's wrong and that isn't his thing. And everyone's arguing about how much money he gave out.

And Florida fans are mad at Miami fans, and Miami fans are mad at Florida fans, but they're not as mad, because they got Jaden Rashada. And both fan bases are trying to trounce the ethics of the other's program, which is freaking hilarious in a historical context. And it was a very entertaining fight. My summation.

PAT FORDE: Yeah. As a man who loves a good fight, like you do, this was definitely-- this enlivened Sunday, that's for sure. Yeah, the squabbling back and forth, the trash talk at the end of this thing, was so good. We had Edwin Pata from the Miami coaching staff tweeting a picture of The Rock, former Miami Hurricane football player, clamping shut the jaws of a gator and said, back to work.

So there was definitely some sack dancing going on from Miami here after this commitment. And then, yeah, when you get the Florida Collective issuing a statement on its involvement or non-involvement and casting a pretty broad aspersion that they weren't gonna get involved in breaking state laws and NCAA rules, i.e., like some other people who may have gotten a player on Sunday. That's kind of where we were with that. Now talking to a few people around this, I mean, here's the thing--

DAN WETZEL: --give you one more Caspino quote, OK?

PAT FORDE: OK.

DAN WETZEL: Because he was-- seemed to be chapped at the Gators.

PAT FORDE: Yes.

DAN WETZEL: Caspino, who Gator Collective says they never spoke to about this, but Caspino said, "Florida is the most dysfunctional collective in all of college football." I mean, this is where we're at in college football. It's pretty funny.

PAT FORDE: Not how good's your strength staff, your conditioning staff? No, no, no, how good's your collective?

DAN WETZEL: Yeah. And like a sore pseudo agent is talking about this, like I plan on steering my clients away from them. From my standpoint, I never want to deal with them again. If it weren't for the Collective that's completely dysfunctional in Florida, he probably would have been there. So he's-- Caspino's taking shots at the collective. I may say this to Caspino. It's not about you, buddy, OK?

PAT FORDE: Yeah. You think?

DAN WETZEL: Jesus. Come on, man.

PAT FORDE: And talked to a few people about this, both Sunday night and Monday morning. And there's a lot of people out there who don't care a whole lot for Michael Caspino. I would say that. Again, you're hearing things that are not maybe necessarily fully well-rounded. You hear from people who feel aggrieved or whatever.

But some people said that Caspino hadn't been involved with Rashada for weeks, that this was Rashada and his family working on this. And where Ruiz got involved might not have even involved Caspino. So the level of his involvement there, the amount of money, was certainly disputed by some people I talked to that they don't think that this thing was more than a million and a half per year for four years, which would be $6 not $9.5 or $11 or anything else.

But there is, you know, certainly a belief that there was a monetary offer that was made and likely accepted. So where that falls within the rules, I don't know. I was all-- I said this. I said, you know, wouldn't this be the kind of thing that a school would turn another school in?

And so was, well, you never know. Things fall apart at that school, you might-- you want-- you don't want to burn a bridge with somebody who's going to hit the transfer portal. So if the NCAA is out there, as they have been, publicly asking for the help of member institutions to turn in people committing violations in the NIL space, guess what? May not get as much help as you wanted there because there's always the chance that that player ends up at your school on the back end.