Matthew Sluka getting some company in transfer portal from a UNLV teammate

The second UNLV football player in less than 24 hours has announced plans to enter the transfer portal and redshirt for the rest of the 2024 season. 

Junior running back for the Rebels Michael Allen took to X on Wednesday afternoon to announce his departure.

Allen transferred to UNLV from North Carolina State prior to the 2024 season. Through the first three games of this year, Allen has rushed 19 times for 108 yards including being the team's leading rusher in the opener against Houston. 

Allen’s decision came just hours after UNLV starting quarterback Matthew Sluka announced he would be transferring and redshirting. Sluka is also a transfer who came from FCS Holy Cross.
Both players cited commitments or expectations they had when committing to UNLV not being met as the reason for their departure. 

In short, these guys were promised some amount of money, UNLV or whoever did not pay that money, and now, one game away from losing eligibility for the season/the ability to redshirt, they have decided to leave.

While NIL is great and players should most definitely be paid, it is the lack of rules or guidelines surrounding it in the current structure of college sports that make it so dangerous and leads to situations like this.

According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Sluka was “verbally promised” at least $100,000 from a UNLV coach when in the transfer portal. Later once enrolled a school collective offered a contract of only $12,000 and as of today Sluka had only received $3,000 as part of a relocation stipend. I imagine the situation with Michael Allen is very similar.

Without any structure around NIL we will get situations like this where both sides seem at fault. First of all, Sluka, and whoever else may have done so, “verbally” agreeing  on an amount of money without any contract, and expecting to get that amount in full is laughable. On the other hand, colleges being able to come with empty promises or false offers to young athletes is a problem.

Many knew the day would come when the crap would hit the fan in terms of NIL and today is seemingly that day. We already saw Michael Allen follow in the footsteps of Sluka and it will be interesting to see if any others do as well and what changes, if any, occur as a reaction to this situation.