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No, no and no.
Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson said that six to eight of his players who returned this season despite tampering efforts by other schools hoping to persuade them to transfer with promises of lucrative endorsement deals. He said the offers to his players ranged in value from roughly $150,000 to around $500,000.
Clawson didn’t identify the schools he said approached his players, saying only that none are in the ACC.
“One school did it with three different players,” Clawson said at the ACC Football Kickoff media event this week in Charlotte. “It was great: ‘No, no, no.’ And the money offers kept getting better.”
Coaches have talked broadly about tampering by schools trying to poach their rosters as the transfer portal allows for free player movement while players also can cash in with name, image and likeness (NIL) endorsement opportunities. Yet coaches rarely go into details beyond alleging it’s happening.
“I love the way (the players) handled it,” Clawson said. “They didn’t try to leverage, negotiate. They just wanted me to know as the head coach that these things are now going on in college football, which I knew.
“But when you get the firsthand examples of it, of ‘This school offered me this much to go there at this time,’ those are very real things.”
*Return each day until the start of the college football season for more information and news to know as we gear up for another campaign.
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