Jaden Rashada is suing Billy Napier. Oh, boy. Here we go. (Photo credit: Mark J. Rebilas, USA Today)
What has easily staked its claim as the craziest story in the young history of college football’s NIL era has taken another turn.
Former Florida QB Jaden Rashada, guided by his father and high-profile attorney Rusty Hardin, is suing a number of people connected to the Florida Gators in the wake of his transfer to Georgia. The lawsuit stems from the result of his once-promised $13.85 million NIL deal crumbling to ashes. Among the people named in the lawsuit: head coach Billy Napier, mega-booster Hugh Hathcock, and former UF employee Marcus Castro-Walker.
Miami mega-booster John Ruiz is also named in the lawsuit.
The first thing to note is that this lawsuit was in the works long before Jaden Rashada stepped foot on Georgia’s campus. It’s convenient to blame Kirby Smart for orchestrating this, but the truth is that lawsuits like this take months, even years to formulate. So while reports are circulating that Smart “signed off” on the lawsuit, Smart simply helped green-light an already mostly-constructed lawsuit across the finish line and into the court system.
And it’s quite a doozy of a lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Billy Napier informed Harlen, Jaden’s father, that Jaden would be given a million dollars from Hugh Hathcock as the first installment of the $13.85 million that he was promised, the remainder of which would be delivered once Rashada signed his letter of intent to Florida. Napier is also alleged to have convinced the Rashada camp to go ahead and have Jaden sign his letter of intent before the full payment amount was delivered.
The real problem it appears that Florida is going to have to battle here is the fact that Eddie Rojas, founder of the Gator Collective, torched the initial deal on December 7, 2022. Which he was allowed to do, as the very contract that he axed stated that he had the right to do so. That’s why this whole ordeal is far more serious than a “breach of contract” accusation.
As stated above, the lawsuit essentially accuses Napier and Castro-Walker of assuring the Rashada camp that Jaden Rashada should go ahead and sign with Florida… without any legally binding promise of money. Which, of course, would leave the Rashadas with no way of collecting money for Jaden’s services as a quarterback.
From the lawsuit:
In addition, Castro-Walker emphasized Coach Napier’s promises, telling Jaden’s agent that Napier would “get it done” and emphasizing Napier’s power as head coach. Castro-Walker also increased pressure on Jaden to sign by telling him if he did not do it right away Coach Napier might pull back his scholarship offer. Of course, Castro-Walker, Napier, and Hathcock all knew that Jaden signing the National Letter of Intent on signing day would commit Jaden to UF and significantly and adversely affect his ability to secure other recruiting opportunities and related NIL deals.
Now that– if proven to be true in a court of law– is pretty damning. Jaden Rashada & Co. might be interested in settling the case for less than $13.85 in some sort of legal compromise, but if they’re not– if they’re really setting out to collect that full $13.85 million– this could get very, very ugly. Because that’s where the dreaded legal term of “fraud” comes into play.
The lawsuit also claims that Rashada signed his letter of intent less than 60 minutes after Napier promised Harlen the $1 million “partial payment,” but before that payment came through. In fact, the lawsuit says, that $1 million payment never did come through.
Among the counts that the Rashada camp is suing on: fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent inducement, aiding and abetting fraud, civil conspiracy to commit fraud, negligent misrepresentations, tortious interference, aiding and abetting tortious interference and vicarious liability. There are so many frightening words in there from a legal standpoint. And if the Rashada camp is serious about proving each individual allegation in court, and not just in it for a settlement, it’s objectively difficult to see this case ending without a multitude of people currently employed by UF losing that employment status.
Marcus Castro-Walker was already terminated for his role in this mess. But if the accusations are proven true, it’s hard to view him as anything other than the fall guy. Because it appears as though the target of this lawsuit is Billy Napier.
From the way the text of this lawsuit is crafted, it appears that the Rashada camp is painting a picture of Billy Napier ordering Castro-Walker to do his bidding. Of course, Castro-Walker did so, per the lawsuit, so he’s not off the hook here. But if that’s true, it basically labels Castro-Walker as a donkey between two haystacks: do what he was told by his boss, which he had to know could pave the way for legal issues, or defy his employer, lose his job, and be labeled an outcast and a pariah in the field in which he’d devoted his professional career to.
Another critical point to note from the lawsuit is that Rashada turned away $9.5 million from Miami– where he initially committed– to flip to Florida. Florida, led by Hugh Hathcock, led what the lawsuit calls a “pressure campaign” to get Rashada to flip, which included both a promise of a $500K signing bonus through Velocity Automotive (owned by Hathcock) and an additional $4.85 to come through Hathcock’s own collective, Gator Guard. That total of $5.35 million would be a huge chunk of the $13.85 million that the lawsuit states Florida collectively promised to Jaden Rashada.
Finally, one nasty little piece of irony: the same day that Rojas terminated the Gator Collective deal for Rashada, Hugh Hathcock sent his version of the bat signal from his Twitter account, stating: “Today! A great day to be a Gator!”
Of course, again, these are all allegations stemming from one side of the story. And there are three sides to every story: your side, our side, and the truth. It’s important to state again and again that a lawsuit itself is not necessarily reality. What happens next depends on what the Rashada camp’s end goal is– do they want to settle, or do they want to drag this out to collect every dollar possible?– but one thing that’s for sure is that this story isn’t going to die any time soon.
And big picture? Just how seismic is this story?
Well, if the Rashada camp wants more than a settlement, and can get a court of law to agree with them on even some of their allegations (which again is a big if) it very well might spell the end for a swath of current UF employees– not the least of which would be the head football coach.
