When the No. 1 offensive tackle in the country, Jordan Seaton, entered the portal, the usual powerhouses already started getting aggressive. Seaton’s last-minute into the portal only boosted his value. Programs like Oregon, Texas, Miami, and Ole Miss quickly showed major interest. Elite teams have a glaring need for OT late in the cycle, and he fits the mold perfectly.

That demand pushed projections of his NIL valuation into a bizarre territory, anywhere from $2.5 million to more than $4 million annually. Yes, even for an offensive lineman, that kind of money was ready. In the end, though, LSU won the tug-of-war, all thanks to Lane Kiffin. The LSU head coach reportedly flew to Atlanta for a sales pitch after Seaton visited Baton Rouge.

That proactive move proved decisive and helped seal Seaton’s commitment to the Tigers. Now comes the real intrigue: how much did LSU actually pay to land him? One source even went as far as claiming that the Tigers shelled out $8.5 million to bring Seaton to Baton Rouge.

Did LSU pay Jordan Seaton $8.5 million? 

Despite the noise, no credible reports suggest that Jordan Seaton secured an $8.5 million NIL deal. Exact NIL figures are rarely made public, but multiple trusted outlets have consistently pegged his market value well below that number.
Reports from Sports Illustrated and On3 estimated Seaton’s potential NIL value in the transfer portal to be in the $4–5 million bracket.

Other transfer portal analysts gave the same idea and were projecting his value at around $2 million, with a plausible boost of $3–4 million per year. Those numbers align with the current NIL scenario. An $8.5 million payout, however, does not. There’s a simple reason for that: even elite offensive tackles don’t cross the $5 million boundary in today’s market.

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Quarterbacks and skill-position stars may get that kind of value, but offensive linemen, regardless of pedigree, operate in a more realistic NIL range. For context, consider Felix Ojo’s commitment to Texas Tech in July 2025. Ojo signed what is widely believed to be a massive, fully guaranteed NIL contract ever for an offensive lineman.

It was a three-year, $5.1 million deal, averaging $1.7 million annually. That benchmark underscores just how false the $8.5 million claim is.

No. 1 portal for a reason

Over the past three years, LSU has steadily increased its NIL spending, and Lane Kiffin is now benefiting from lessons the program learned the hard way under Brian Kelly in 2024. So Bryce Underwood initially gave his commitment to LSU. He was even committed to Baton Rouge for a whole year before he committed to Ann Arbor.

Now, Underwood stated that the reason was the distance from his home. But the real reason clearly points towards the monetary gain. At LSU, he was assigned to earn $1.5 million, where he was extracting 27% of LSU’s whole rosters investment. Yes, the Tigers’ 2024 roster is worth $5.5 million. On the other hand, Michigan countered it with an offer of $10-12 million. That was the final touch.

After that, the LSU boosters understood that they needed to invest more. That’s why the 2025 roster was $18 million. And now the new head coach, Lane Kiffin, is enjoying a collective of $40 million to spend on their roster. They got Sam Leavitt for over $4 million. To protect him, they already have Jordan Seaton.

Other than that, they also have the No.1 edge rusher, Princewill Umanmielen. The Tigers reportedly had to buy out a significant portion of his previous NIL deal just to get him out of his old situation. On top of that, LSU is paying him north of $1 million to bring him to Baton Rouge.