Drake Maye says transfer talk, NIL rumors 'weren't really reality'

Despite not even being in the transfer portal, North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye has been at the center of a major conversation involving it. That’s because, per reports and hearsay from different coaches, other schools were allegedly tampering with Maye so he’d leave Chapel Hill through the portal to join a new program with promises of NIL opportunities.

However, Maye has now set the record straight through an interview he had with ESPN’s Pete Thamel. He said the rumors involving him weren’t completely factual and that, unequivocally, no one offered him or his family anything.

“Those rumors weren’t really reality,” said Maye in Thamel’s report. “Pitt’s coach ended up putting that out there. I don’t know what that was about. You have to enter the transfer portal to talk to these schools and hear these offers.”

“There was nothing, to me or my family, directly offered from any of these other schools. Nothing was said or offered to the Mayes.”

Maye went on to say during the interview that any interest he may have actually garnered was only ‘through the grapevine’ like through his high school coach or his representatives.

Maye has, time and again, explicitly reaffirmed his commitment to the Tar Heels and Mack Brown’s program. He says representing that school means more to him than any amount of money could, which is a different direction than where he thinks the rest of the sport and its athletes are headed.

“It wouldn’t sit right, especially with all my family…Switching it up after everything the Mayes went through wouldn’t represent what the university means to me or how much it means for me to go there,” Maye said. “It’d mess up the mojo and all we’ve built there. That Carolina blue is special.”

“Sadly, I think money is becoming a reason why kids go places. Where I’m playing at and with and for? Coach Brown? Just that Carolina blue outweighs the money part of it,” said Maye. “I don’t think any amount of money from whatever school (would sway me). Nowadays, people are signing for NIL…If I were to transfer out and go somewhere, it wouldn’t be the same.”

This controversy has swirled around Maye since the end of UNC’s regular season. Moreover, it never really should have begun considering all things. It has made Maye just the latest example of a school, coach, or player having a justified complaint about some of the new changes we’re seeing in college athletics.

“For me, I think college football is going to turn into a mess,” Maye said. “They’re going to have to do something.”