After leading his team to a 3-0 start, UNLV starting quarterback Matthew Sluka announced late Tuesday night that he was done playing for the Rebels because of promises made around his NIL compensation that were not fulfilled.
Sluka, a Holy Cross transfer, plans to sit out the rest of the season as a redshirt and reenter the transfer portal in December. His sudden decision raises questions about the nature of his financial agreement with UNLV, how the deal fell apart and who ultimately bears responsibility for an undefeated team losing its top quarterback.
Here’s what you need to know as this story continues to develop:
Sluka joined UNLV this summer after a decorated career at the FCS level at Holy Cross. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound senior was a three-year starter and two-time finalist for the Walter Payton Award, which goes to the top offensive player in FCS. Sluka earned Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year honors in 2023 after producing 1,728 passing yards and 1,247 rushing yards with 29 total touchdowns.
At the end of the season, Holy Cross coach Bob Chesney and his staff left to take over James Madison and Sluka opted to test his options in the transfer portal. UNLV brought him in after losing starting quarterback Jayden Maiava, the Mountain West Freshman of the Year, to USC.
After three games, Sluka led all Mountain West quarterbacks in rushing yards per game and had 253 total rushing yards. He threw for 318 yards with seven total touchdowns and one turnover while leading a Rebels offense that ranks fifth in FBS in rushing.
Following an impressive 9-5 debut season, coach Barry Odom has the Rebels in the hunt for a bid in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. UNLV is off to a 3-0 start with upset wins on the road against Big 12 programs Houston and Kansas. Sluka powered the team’s win over the Jayhawks on Sept. 13 with a team-high 124 rushing yards on 19 carries plus 86 passing yards and a touchdown.
The Rebels rose to No. 23 in the coaches poll this week after their idle week. UNLV and Boise State have emerged as popular picks to earn a spot in the inaugural expanded playoff. If the Rebels win the Mountain West, they’ll have a strong chance of earning the bid.
Sluka’s NIL representative, Marcus Cromartie of Equity Sports, told ESPN that Sluka is leaving the program after he was verbally promised a minimum of $100,000 from a UNLV coach and only received $3,000.
His father, Bob Sluka, told ESPN they had a verbal agreement with UNLV offensive coordinator Brennan Marion for what they believed was a “reasonable, fair number,” even if it was much less than what Power 4 programs offered, but payments were repeatedly delayed and no effort was made to formalize a contract with their collective for that amount.
After UNLV’s win over Kansas, Bob Sluka said Odom and Cromartie spoke on Sept. 19 and the head coach refused to uphold the agreement, instead offering $3,000 for relocation costs and asserting that the offer wasn’t valid because it didn’t come from him. Sluka’s camp contends they never went to Odom seeking more money, only what they were promised up front. Marion declined to comment to ESPN.
Rob Sine of Blueprint Sports, the company that manages UNLV’s collective, confirmed to ESPN that Sluka had no deal in writing with the collective and said the collective wasn’t aware of any promises to pay Sluka $100,000. Sine also confirmed that Sluka received one $3,000 payment.
In a statement, UNLV said Sluka’s representatives made financial demands in order to continue playing that its athletic department interpreted as a violation of the NCAA pay-for-play rules and Nevada state law. “UNLV does not engage in such activities, nor does it respond to implied threats,” the school said in the statement.
College football players cannot enter the transfer portal at this time, but they can leave a program whenever they want. The NCAA’s transfer portal window does not open until Dec. 9, which is the Monday after conference championship games. Sluka will not be able to enter his name into the portal until then and cannot join another team to keep playing in 2024.
The decision Sluka made is not uncommon in the world of transfer recruiting. Every year, many players decide to transfer because of disagreements over NIL value and payments, and there were several instances of players reentering the transfer portal this spring to seek more money from another school.
Financial issues aside, his motivation for leaving now is to take advantage of the four-game redshirt rule and play one more college season in 2025.
College football players can gain one additional season of eligibility if they play in four games or fewer in a year and take a redshirt season. The rule was implemented in 2018 and is traditionally intended for younger players who play limited snaps as backups. The NCAA is currently considering extending that four-game maximum to exempt conference title, bowl and College Football Playoff games. Sluka played four seasons at Holy Cross and did not utilize a redshirt year. Because he began his career in 2020 during COVID-19, he could take advantage of an extra season of eligibility in 2024. By redshirting, he’ll be able to play in 2025.
Issues like these occur all the time but rarely spill out into the public. Quarterback Jaden Rashada suing Florida coach Billy Napier and others over a failed $13.85 million deal is by far the most prominent example of a player attempting to hold a school accountable for unfulfilled promises, but these issues occur frequently in a marketplace where NIL opportunities can often be exaggerated during the recruiting process.
The deals that players strike with school NIL collectives are not binding employment contracts. Players and their families or representatives seeking more money from a collective than was initially agreed upon is commonplace, especially if they receive better offers from other programs. But just as commonplace are instances of players earning less money than they expected or were promised, either verbally or in writing.
“We’re a hardworking family,” Bob Sluka told ESPN. “To be able to have an athlete like Matt, we don’t even really care that much about the money. But there is a principle to it. He’s not the first athlete to have this happen. We’ve heard it from a million kids that they don’t get their money. So maybe Matt has to be the poster boy, but we don’t want him to. But we’re not going to have Barry Odom just stand up and say, ‘F you, I’m not paying you, get your ass out on the field.'”
Sluka’s departure from UNLV highlights a troubling issue for all parties at a time when the rules around player compensation are about to dramatically change.
If approved, the House v. NCAA antitrust settlement will bring on a new era of revenue sharing in college athletics beginning in 2025-26. Schools will be able to directly pay their athletes via NIL deals up to a limit, expected to be between $20 and $23 million per school next year with annual increases.
That settlement is currently on hold after Judge Claudia Wilken declined to grant preliminary approval on Sept. 5 and ordered attorneys to “go back to the drawing board” regarding restrictions around third-party NIL payments from collectives.
In this process of modernizing college athletics, the NCAA has long opposed moving toward a model that deems its athletes employees of their school and has spent several years lobbying Congress for help with federal legislature to prevent athletes from being considered employees.
The Rebels will move forward with seniors Hajj-Malik Williams and Cameron Friel as their top options at quarterback as they enter Mountain West conference play on Saturday against Fresno State.
Williams, an FCS transfer from Campbell, has appeared in two games this season and rushed for 88 yards on 10 carries during UNLV’s 72-14 blowout win over Utah Tech. He became Campbell’s all-time leading passer with 8,236 yards and 58 touchdowns over his five seasons in the program. Friel has earned 10 starts for the Rebels over the past two seasons.
Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report.