UNC QB Drake Maye refutes $5M rumors, says CFB will 'turn into a mess'

Drake Maye has arguably been one of the biggest names of this college football "offseason" and we haven't even seen the College Football Playoff played yet. 

All the talk about Maye and the "will he, won't he" regarding a transfer to a different program is bogus, though. That's according to Maye himself, who recently said that all the noise around him is simply that.

"Those rumors weren't really reality," he told ESPN.

Yes, there have been rumors, and there are plenty of them.

Heck, North Carolina hasn't even played its bowl game against No. 15 Oregon yet but there's been plenty of talk about Maye — a sophomore — getting lured away to play somewhere other than UNC. His head coach, Mack Brown, said that "the usual suspects" were throwing money at Maye. Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi started a rumor suggesting that two unnamed schools were after Maye to the tune of a $5 million NIL deal to try to entice him to transfer.

"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," Maye said. "For me, I think college football is going to turn into a mess. They're going to have to do something. 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 threw for 4,115 yards and 35 touchdowns this season while also rushing for 653 yards and seven touchdowns. Though he would be a massive star on the transfer portal and could probably end up at a "more prominent" football program, he does have big-time UNC roots.

Both of his parents graduated from North Carolina and his brother, Luke, did this with UNC basketball in 2017. Maye's father, Mark Maye, also played quarterback for UNC from 1984-1987.

"It wouldn't sit right, especially with all my family..." the young quarterback said regarding the possibility of leaving North Carolina. "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. It'd mess up the mojo and all we've built there. That Carolina blue is special. There's no other color in the world that meaningful."