Boston College receiver Zay Flowers turns down multiple six-figure NIL deals

Boston College wide receiver Zay Flowers reportedly turned down two separate six-figure NIL deals less than a week prior to the May 1 transfer portal deadline. According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Flowers was told that companies would give him $600,000 to transfer to one school and there was another deal that would give him $300,000 to go to a different school.

“For a kid like me from a household of 14 with one parent, that’s life-changing money,” Flowers said. “I talked to Coach Hafley and we went through what was going on. I talked to my dad. My dad would love me to stay at BC, and I wanted to stay at BC. It was a decision I had to make, and the decision I made was to come back to school.”

The only problem? No college coaches reached Zay Flowers to him during that short window, so there was nothing he could do because he never entered his name into the transfer portal.

“It felt like I was back being recruited,” he said. “They put a lot of pressure on you, too. But there’s no money on the line during the time when you are recruited [in high school]. Now there’s money on the line. That makes it harder.”

Flowers gave a call to Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley, who is calling for some changes to the rules currently in place in Massachusetts. Luckily, Flowers already has several NIL deals in place at BC, including one that provides him with a BMW. He elected to stay home and have his current deals benefit his family while he’s in college.

“I mean, we don’t live in the best area,” Flowers said. “[My dad] does everything he can to help make ends meet. He works a lot…I mean, like, just having that [amount of money offered], that’s probably more than my dad ever made in his whole life, and I’d make in a year. It could help my dad make his burden easier on him and [my siblings and nieces and nephews], put me in a better situation to help my family.”

Flowers’ father, Willie, discussed the importance of loyalty in a recent interview with ESPN. When Flowers was first greeted with the prospect of a six-figure deal, he was excited and somewhat ready to take the deals. Willie calmed his son down to talk about the deals. It was his fathers words that helped Flowers know exactly where he wanted to be regardless of NIL: Boston College.

“I told him, like Bill Parcells said, ‘Don’t chase the cheese, it’s rat poison,'” he said about his son.