Michael Irvin didn’t just toss out a name or two when asked about college football’s NIL era on “The Dan Patrick Show.” He opened the door to a full-on what-if exercise, and it started with the buzz around Jeremiah Smith.
Irvin said he had heard Smith’s offseason offer reached eight figures.
"What I heard is that Jeremiah Smith got up to $10 million offered."
He doubled down on that point later in the conversation, while making clear he was only repeating what had been passed along to him.
"I don't understand why he didn't do it, but from what I heard, Jeremiah Smith got up to $10 million offered," Irvin said. "I don't know how you can get offered $10 million and not go home to play football. So I look at that and imagine what Deion would've gotten."
That sent Irvin into the broader NIL hypothetical: if the current market had existed in his playing days, who would have cashed in the biggest? His list was short and star-studded - Deion Sanders, Cam Newton, Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson.
Back in April, Smith said programs were offering "over 10 million dollars, easy" to get him to leave Columbus. Miami has been the school most commonly connected to that figure, in part because Smith is from Miami Gardens and played at Chaminade-Madonna Prep. Neither Smith nor the Hurricanes have confirmed that the $10 million offer came from Coral Gables, but the speculation has stuck around.
Irvin pushed the idea even further by tying it to Miami’s own history. If a Miami Gardens native can draw an eight-figure offer to transfer home in 2026, he wondered aloud what Sanders would have been worth in the late 1980s. He also asked what kind of number he himself would have commanded as the featured receiver on Jimmy Johnson’s 1987 title team.
His point was simple: the money would have been massive, even by the standards of that era.
Still, Irvin said he wouldn’t have left Miami, even if that kind of offer had been sitting in front of him. He said he can understand Smith’s position to a point, but the whole discussion only works as a hypothetical because the two eras are so far apart.
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