Short version: Jaden Rashada signed a $13.85 million deal with a Florida collective in November 2022. A letter ended it in December, before he signed with the school. He sued, and the case settled in February 2026, terms not released.
His lawsuit says none of it was paid. Here is how the deal moved, from the promise to the letter to the settlement, as the record and the reporting tell it. What is only alleged is marked so.
The promise
Rashada was a top quarterback recruit from Pittsburg, California. In June 2022 he committed to Miami. His suit says a Miami booster promised him $9.5 million. The booster later said his company never had a deal that size with him.
On November 10, 2022, Rashada switched his commitment to Florida. The same day he signed a $13.85 million deal to be paid over four years, CBS Sports reported.
The money was not from the school. It was to come through booster Hugh Hathcock's company and through a collective. A collective is a group outside the school that raises money from fans and boosters to pay athletes.
At the time, Florida law barred the state's universities from arranging that pay themselves, ESPN reported. So the promise ran through people and groups the school did not control.
The letter
The first payment was $500,000, due December 5, 2022. The suit alleges the booster had decided not to pay it.
On December 6, the Gator Collective sent Rashada a letter ending the contract. According to a law firm's summary of the complaint, the contract could be ended only "for cause", and Rashada argues there was none.
A promise isn't a payment. The contract says who pays, when, and how it can end.
Signing day
On December 21, 2022, 15 days after that letter, Rashada signed his letter of intent with Florida. A letter of intent is the paper that commits a recruit to a school.
His suit alleges that head coach Billy Napier told his father $1 million from the booster would come once Rashada signed. It also alleges that Marcus Castro-Walker, a Florida staffer, said Napier might walk away if he did not sign.
Those are allegations. Napier and the other defendants have consistently maintained there was no wrongdoing, WUSF reported.
The money did not come, the suit says. In January 2023 Rashada asked to be let out of his letter of intent, and Florida released him. He had not taken a class there. He then committed to Arizona State.
The suit says he "neither sought nor was promised any type of NIL commitment" from Arizona State.
The case
On May 21, 2024, Rashada sued Napier, Hathcock, Hathcock's company Velocity Automotive and Castro-Walker in federal court in Pensacola. The University of Florida and its athletic association were not named.
The claims included fraud, conspiracy and negligent misrepresentation, which means a false statement made carelessly. The suit asked for a jury trial and at least $10 million.
On April 8, 2025, Judge M. Casey Rodgers let the fraud claims go forward and dismissed three others: two about interfering with his other deals, and the conspiracy claim.
That ruling is called a denial of a motion to dismiss. At that stage, a judge reads the claims as written and asks only whether they are enough to go on. Rashada still had to prove them, Ogletree Deakins noted.
How it ended
A trial was set for July 2026. Instead, the sides went to mediation, and the case was formally settled on February 17, 2026, the Associated Press reported. The details of the settlement were not released.
So no court ever ruled on whether the claims were true. The record holds what was promised, what was signed, the letter that ended it, and a settlement whose terms are private.
Rashada went on to Georgia in 2024, Sacramento State in 2025 and Mississippi State in 2026, the AP reported. Napier is now the coach at James Madison.
What the record shows you
The recruiting rules have changed since 2022. The NCAA no longer enforces its old limits on deals made during recruiting, Ogletree Deakins wrote in 2025. What the contract says still decides what arrives.
In this case the dollar figure was the easy part. The harder lines were who was paying, when the first payment was due, and what let the payer end the deal.
Upload a contract and Leave reads those lines back in plain words: who pays you, the payment dates, and the termination clause, which is the part that says how either side can end it. The dates go on your calendar.
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Questions people ask
Did a court find that Napier or the booster did anything wrong?
No. In April 2025 a judge let the fraud claims go forward, which only means they were enough to proceed. The case settled in February 2026, before any trial, and the terms were not released. The defendants have maintained there was no wrongdoing.
Who was the $13.85 million contract with?
Not the school. The money was to come through a booster's company and a collective, a group outside the school that raises money to pay athletes. In 2022, Florida law barred the state's universities from arranging that pay themselves, ESPN reported.
Why did he sign with Florida after the deal was ended?
His suit says the coach told his father $1 million would come once he signed, and a staffer said the coach might walk away if he did not. Those are allegations from the suit. They were never tested at trial.
Be your own agent. Leave.