UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka left the undefeated Rebels Tuesday night amid allegations that a UNLV assistant coach reneged on verbal promises about a NIL. The decision highlights the fragility of the current university system and how it attracts and retains talent.

Sluka’s agent, Marcus Cromartie, told ESPN that UNLV did not accept a verbal offer of $100,000 from an assistant coach. The quarterback’s father, Bob Sluka, told ESPN that head coach Barry Odom later said in a phone call that the offer was not valid because it did not come from him, but from offensive coordinator Brennan Marion, who declined to comment to ESPN.

UNLV and Shannon Cottrell, director of athlete engagement for the Friends of UNLV collective, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

UNLV’s collective paid Sluka as much as $3,000 for a commitment he made this summer, according to Rob Sine, who runs Blueprint Sports, a company that manages the collective. Sine said Sluka’s agents first contacted the collective in late August to discuss future partnership opportunities.

Sine said he was not aware of any promise to pay Sluka $100,000 and that, to his knowledge, Sluka had not contacted the collective about the missing payments.

The decisions come at a significant time for UNLV, as the Rebels are 3-0 and ranked No. 23 in the coaches poll, the first time the program has been ranked in a major poll in history.

UNLV defeated Big 12 programs Houston Cougars and Kansas with Sluka at quarterback and hosts Fresno State on Saturday in its Mountain West Conference opener. The Rebels’ home game the following Friday night against Syracuse has become one of the most anticipated in recent school history.

UNLV is also in the process of deciding the future of its conference between the Pac-12 and Mountain West, a decision that will have a major impact on the current structure of college sports.

Because Marion’s offer to Sluka was verbal and never formalized, there are different versions of what happened. Sources told ESPN that Sluka approached Odom about the money in recent days and practiced with the Rebels on Monday, but did not practice on Tuesday. The senior transfer announced on social media on Tuesday that he would not play for the Rebels again this season and that he planned to use his redshirt this year.

photo.twitter.com/oK5BDRpoxK

— Matthew Sluka (@MatthewSluka) September 25, 2024

The only formal offer from the school, according to Cromartie, was an offer of $3,000 a month for four months. The only money Sluka received from UNLV, according to Cromartie, was $3,000 for moving expenses.

The tension seems to revolve around the verbal offer. While there have been reports from UNLV that Sluka was asking for more money, Sluka insists he only asked for what the program verbally promised. Because no upfront contract is required due to the vagaries of NIL rules and third parties technically responsible for giving the deals to athletes, the ambiguity over the validity of verbal offers hangs over the enterprise of college athletics.

According to his father and agent, Sluka never asked for a change in the initial deal that was promised. When Sluka reported to UNLV in the summer, he was told the money would be paid in installments. He was later told the payment would come after he enrolled in school and began classes, his father said.

According to Cromartie, the school and the collective formally offered $3,000 a month for four months, which is $88,000 less than what Sluka and Cromartie were verbally told last winter.

The current system for paying college athletes, in which schools can make financial offers to players during the recruiting process but cannot immediately honor those promises, could soon change. As part of an ongoing antitrust lawsuit, the NCAA has agreed to allow its schools to pay players directly. If the settlement is approved by the court, the new system has the potential to provide more certainty for both players and teams by allowing them to enter into more direct contracts with each other.

After UNLV’s games began, Cromartie reached out to Cottrell and director of player development Hunkie Cooper.

“They keep delaying — ‘We don’t know. You’ve got to wait,'” Bob Sluka said. “Then it was like, ‘We’re going to give him game checks.’ So we said, ‘OK, great.’ We didn’t ask for a dollar (more). At one point we had to pay out of pocket to have him there, because his living expenses weren’t even covered.”

Bob Sluka told ESPN that Marion and Equity Sports’ agents struck a verbal deal over the winter, following a recruiting visit where they spent most of their time with Marion but also met with the entire coaching staff.

“We went out there thinking that if Matt came over there on the NIL deal, we would get a certain amount of money, not a huge amount, but a reasonable, fair amount,” Bob Sluka said. He added that Matthew later received more than 25 NIL offers from other schools, including Big Ten and SEC teams, that were “four, five times what we were willing to accept from UNLV.”

After UNLV’s verbal promise money never materialized, Sluka decided to leave the team and exercise his redshirt opportunity.

NCAA redshirt rules allow players to retain a year of eligibility if they play four or fewer games in a season. Sluka, who played four seasons (2020-23) at FCS program Holy Cross before transferring to UNLV last offseason, has one year of eligibility remaining that he could use next season at another school.

According to NCAA rules, players are not allowed to play for two schools in the same season.

UNLV is 3-0 for the first time since 1984 and also has 53 total points in the latest Associated Press poll, just 16 points behind No. 25 Boise State. The Rebels, who stunned Kansas in Week 3, also opened the season with a win against Houston to make it 2-0 against Big 12 teams and raise hopes that they could compete for a spot in the newly expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.

Sluka has completed 21 of 48 passes for 318 yards and six touchdowns with one interception this season, his first with the Rebels. He has also rushed for 39 times for 286 yards and a score.

In UNLV’s 23-20 upset win over Kansas on Sept. 13, Sluka led the Rebels on an 18-play, 75-yard drive that ended with Kylin James scoring on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 1:51 left. Sluka rushed for 113 yards in the game.

After the win, Bob Sluka said Cromartie had talked to Cooper in the stadium tunnel about Sluka’s deal, and Cooper told him to call him the following week. On September 19, Cooper and Odom called Cromartie.

Bob Sluka said the phone call gave the impression that Marion did not have the authority to make an offer of that caliber. Bob Sluka said the family never heard from UNLV’s collective and is confused about what happened.

“We have no idea what the hell happened,” Bob Sluka said. “Nobody can explain it. Why would you let your starting quarterback walk out of the building? We didn’t ask for a dime more than what was agreed upon (this winter).”

Sluka spent the first four years of his collegiate career at Holy Cross, where he ranks first in career pass efficiency (147.4), second in career rushing yards (3,583), second in career rushing touchdowns (38), fifth in career passing yards (5,916) and fifth in career passing touchdowns (59). He rushed for an NCAA Division I quarterback record 330 yards in a loss to Lafayette in 2023.

Holy Cross reached the FCS playoffs in 2021 and 2022 with Sluka as the starter. After a coaching change at Holy Cross — head coach Bob Chesney left to take over at James Madison — Sluka also left.

Sluka plans to work out with a quarterback coach this fall and enroll in a school in January, where he will have time to learn the system, something he was unable to do because he graduated from Holy Cross last spring.

With Sluka out of the picture, UNLV will likely turn to senior transfer Hajj-Malik Williams or senior Cameron Friel as its starting quarterback. UNLV went 9-5 last season and played for the Mountain West championship, but the quarterback who led that team to the program’s best season in nearly 40 years, Jayden Maiava, transferred to USC.

Dan Murphy of ESPN and The Associated Press contributed to this report.