In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA could not bar student-athletes from benefiting from education-related payments. Better known as the name, image and likeness (NIL) ruling, the Supreme Court said student-athletes could be paid for the use of their name, image and likeness without jeopardizing their “amateur status.” What happened in the aftermath of that decision can only be described as utter chaos.

Two big NIL-related college football stories in recent days are a case in point.

Tuesday night, UNLV started quarterback Matthew Sluka announced he left the Rebels’ 3-0 football program. Sluka transferred to the school from Holy Cross after last season. His agent told ESPN that Sluka’s decision was motivated, at least in part, by a verbal offer of $100,000 promised by an assistant coach. Sluka’s father claims that UNLV head coach Barry Odom claimed the verbal offer was not valid because it did not come from him.

UNLV has a different perspective. The university said in a statement that the “student-athlete representative made financial demands on the university and its NIL collective in order to continue playing.” The school claimed that while it had “honored all previously agreed upon scholarships for Matthew Sluka,” Sluka’s team’s demands were interpreted “as a violation of NCAA pay-for-play rules, as well as Nevada state law.”

There’s more: UNLV has a fan- and alumni-driven collective that helps players pay for their name, image and likeness. The Friends of UNLV collective says it has no record of Sluka being owed any money, aside from the $3,000 payment paid to him over the summer for an engagement in which he attended.

Sluka’s departure so early in the season means he will have another year of eligibility if he transfers to another program. But it also means he let his teammates down after one of the best starts in school history, with wins over Big 12 foes Houston and Kansas.

Either way, this “new normal” for college athletics is feeling more and more like the Wild West. As a vocal conservative sports and news commentator Clay Travis pointed out to us carefullyEven professional sports don’t have “perpetual free agency” that allows you to leave a team and join another team four games per season.

In another corner of the internet, controversial Barstool Sports founder and CEO Dave Portnoy took to social media on Thursday bid up to $3 million dollars annually to the top (and eligible) quarterbacks committed to his alma mater, Michigan. Four years ago, if a coach bought too many cheeseburgers for a starving player on his roster, the NCAA could sanction him. Now you have sports media company owners offering suitcases of cash to student-athletes.