They say there are two sides to a coin. Looks like college football is one such coin. Do you remember what Nick Saban’s wife, Terry Saban, said about NIL? “All they care about is how much you’re going to pay them they don’t care about how you’re going to develop them, which is all what we’ve always done so why are we doing this?” Yes, definitely there are players who fit into that category. Carson Beck, Nico Iamaleava took the NIL path. However, there have been players to whom loyalty was non-negotiable and Arizona State Sun Devils quarterback Sam Leavitt falls in that list. He chose loyalty over fat checks. Does that mean he is totally blind about his college? Absolutely not. After all, Leavitt did not push his team’s CFP mishap under the carpet. Instead, he addressed it without any hesitation.

“I firmly believe, you know, he could win the Heisman trophy. I really believe that.” This is how Kenny Dillingham is confident about Leavitt running the show. Well, can you blame Dillingham for pinning such high hopes on his quarterback? No way. 2885 yards, 24 touchdowns, and 216 of 350 yards, these are the numbers of sheer toughness. Now, this never gives Leavitt a chance to take things for granted. Instead, he has got his own mood board set up.

Having a whiteboard attached to his fridge, it comes with a question to make him push harder. “How great do you want to be?” Turns out that for chasing greatness, Leavitt did not have to chase other teams or fatter checks. On May 27, CFB Alerts shared an IG post with the quarterback’s quote. “Why would you not want to be in a situation where you know exactly what’s going on.”

Leavitt further put stress on how he wants to strengthen his foot in Arizona State, which would give him a firmer ground to take the long leap to the NFL. So, running after a few thousand dollars, he does not want to sacrifice something bigger that is in store for him in the NFL. “Who cares if you get paid a couple hundred thousand dollars less when you’re gonna have a shot to now go play in the NFL and make 10 times more money.” Dillingham’s quarterback sits with a NIL valuation of $3 million. Now this is less as compared to Leavitt’s mates who swapped wagons. 

Beck’s one switch from Georgia to Miami earned him a $4 million NIL offer. Even the ones who chose to stay loyal rank higher in the NIL charts. Texas Longhorns star, Arch Manning, for instance, holds an NIL value of approximately $6.6 million. So, in both ways, Leavitt had good enough reasons to consider jumping off Dillingham’s train. However, he chooses to ride it till the final destination in his college journey. After all, he can already foresee something grand awaiting him at the end. 

In about a month since the 2025 draft, Leavitt has been mocked in the first round 14 times and ranked as a first-round pick on three big boards. He’s as high as No. 5 (Cleveland Browns) on one mock and as low as No. 30 (Detroit Lions) on another. Out of the most frequent appearances in Leavitt’s probable next home, the Los Angeles Rams appeared six times, and the Pittsburgh Steelers appeared four times. However, as of now, Leavitt will have to let go of the burden of the 2024 snub and gift a happy ending to the Sun Devils.       

Red zone regrets still haunt Sam Leavitt

The 2024 season saw Dillingham’s defense finish third in the Big 12 in points per game, allowing an average of 22.6. They also restricted Iowa State, which averaged over 31 points per game, to just 19 in the conference championship showdown. But there have been some big oopsie moments, too. The biggest that still haunts Leavitt and his program in their sleep is the heartbreaking 31-29 loss to Steve Sarkisian’s boys. On The Matt Barrie Show, the host triggered his fresh regret. 

Turns out that Leavitt is still not over the pain. “You know the whole time I was like, ‘We just need one play to pop like we need a big play or we really didn’t even need a huge play we were we were playing pretty.’ Well, we just need we needed to finish in the red zone, which we weren’t, and that was the most frustrating part.” Maybe the regret hits bigger as the Sun Devils initially came off as a dominant force. Arizona State held onto the ball for nearly three times as long as Texas, 32:49 to 12:11 through three quarters.

However, they failed to close the deal. Arizona State had five drives to get inside the Texas 40. The result? Three of those went into the red zone and came away with a total of only three points. And one could sense the repentance in Sam Leavitt’s voice. “I don’t know if I’m still over it…there’s just so many plays that could have been made there… there was so many that it was ridiculous.” It’s the make-or-break season for Leavitt. He’s betting that staying true to his roots beats chasing dollars when it comes to reaching the NFL dream.