In the age of NIL and the transfer portal, there’s a new story almost every day about players being offered large sums of money to leave their current schools and transfer elsewhere.
In mid-June, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia claimed he was offered $4.5 million to leave Vanderbilt by another SEC program. While that figure may seem believable given today’s NIL landscape, one analyst isn’t convinced and openly doubts the offer.
Analyst Calls Out Diego Pavia’s $4.5M NIL Offer Claim
At the end of 2023, Pavia transferred from New Mexico State to Vanderbilt and became the Commodores’ starting quarterback for the 2024 season.
Pavia played well in his first year at Vanderbilt, leading the program to a victory over Alabama and its first winning season since 2013. With the season he had, there were rumors about him transferring, but he decided to stay with the Commodores for the 2025 campaign.
On June 17, Pavia appeared on the “Bussin with the Boys” podcast, where host Taylor Lewan asked the young QB what the biggest offer he received was to leave Vanderbilt.
$4.5M for Diego Pavia to hit the portal, are you taking that? pic.twitter.com/U2kVHATI20
— Bussin’ With The Boys (@BussinWTB) June 17, 2025
“Anywhere from $4 to $4.5 [million] to leave,” Pavia said.
This number, while large, seemed reasonable in the current landscape of NIL, as Miami reportedly paid Carson Beck $4.3 million to transfer to the Hurricanes from Georgia.
However, Cole Cubelic, who hosts the “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” radio show, said he doesn’t buy that figure for one second.
Cubelic explained that there seems to be a new trend in college football of players overstating how much money other programs have offered them.
“The new trend is, and I’m just going to say this point blank, is lying about how much money you were going to get from somewhere else,” Cubelic said. “Diego Pavia did not get offered $4.5 million to go play one year of football somewhere. Folks, that did not happen.”
It’s hard to say whether Pavia was lying, as he ended up staying with Vanderbilt. On3 lists his NIL valuation at $1.6 million, which is well below the $4.5 million that he claimed he was offered.
Cubelic acknowledged that Pavia might have been told that figure by someone close to him, and he probably did not hear it directly from a school.
“There might be somebody close to him that felt like it was cool to tell him that, and he believed him, but no, negative,” Cubelic said.
Whether the $4.5 million offer was real or not, the fact that most of the media and college football fans didn’t bat an eye at it shows how crazy the NIL landscape currently is.
