FOUL BALL

Georgia Quarterback Sues Top Florida Coach Over Shady $13.85M Deal

The deal was enough to lure Jaden Rashada away from one of the University of Florida’s rival schools before it all fell apart.

University of Georgia quarterback Jaden Rashada, a former University of Florida recruit, filed a bombshell lawsuit on Tuesday accusing UF coach Billy Napier and others of tricking him into abandoning a commitment to a rival school by offering him a $13.85 million “name, image, and likeness” deal that later imploded. Rashada claims Napier, school donor Hugh Hathcock, and another UF official promised he would make serious dough if he joined the team, starting off with a $500,000 signing bonus. Hathcock even claimed he could get Rashada’s dad a job, the suit says. It was enough to persuade Rashada to ditch a $9.5 million NIL deal from a UF rival, the University of Miami. But the UF officials “never had the money and yet they were making all of these promises to the kid,” Rashada’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, told CBS Sports. “You dangle life-changing, generation-changing money in front of a 19-year-old kid, who grew up without it, you can't expect that young person to not be affected by it.”