Former South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia claims many players in the Southeastern Conference get paid money for autographs. He even says one player made as much as $160,000 one season for “selling autographs and stuff.”
Garcia was asked to give his thoughts on the subject and he didn’t hold back – he even managed to get a jab in at Vanderbilt and Kentucky.
“I wish it would have came to me, but they thought of me as some rich white kid so I didn’t really get a whole lot of benefits from that,” Garcia said on The Mac Attack show on WFNZ on Thursday. “I mean, I’m just being honest with you, and that’s what it is. I saw it firsthand with a lot of players.”
Garcia did not say whether any of those players were his teammates with the Gamecocks and did not mention any names.
“I am friends with a lot of players around the SEC and some of the stories they tell me, it makes the Todd Gurley thing seem insignificant by a long shot,” Garcia said.
Gurley, a junior running back at Georgia, is currently suspended as the school investigates whether he accepted cash for autographing memorabilia, which would be an NCAA violation.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say it does not happen at Vanderbilt,” said Garcia, who is now a college football analyst for Saturday Down South. “I don’t think that is really prevalent over there. Maybe Kentucky not either, but every other SEC team, I guarantee you some of these guys are getting some handshakes with some cash in there.”
