Florida State's Jared Verse inks NIL deal with Rising Spear, Kraft Nissan

Jared Verse will be riding in style for the rest of the season.

The Florida State defensive lineman has inked a NIL agreement with Tallahassee’s Kraft Nissan through the Rising Spear collective.

A transfer from Albany, Verse is in his first full season with the Seminoles and was a highly touted portal target this past offseason. He picked Florida State over other major programs, receiving offers from Auburn, Miami, Tennessee and USC.

Wednesday’s news marks his first NIL announcement to date. And now he’ll be riding around in an all-black Nissan Frontier for the remainder of the year. One of the first collectives launched in the country in December 2021, Rising Spear absorbed Warpath 850 this past May. Boosters have two options when working with the collective, either making a tax-deductible donation or enlisting an athlete to promote their business.

Verse is a perfect example of that, announcing his Kraft Nissan partnership on Twitter and Instagram.

Without any offers coming out of high school, Albany saw potential in Verse as a defensive end. He really only ended up playing one year for the Great Danes, between a redshirt season and COVID’s impact. But in the 15 total games he played, he had 74 tackles, 13.5 sacks, 21.5 tackles for loss and 13 quarterback hurries.

It was enough to earn multiple All-American honors and become a commodity in the portal. Landing at Florida State was a strong fit. The EDGE took over for Jermaine Johnson, who finished with 11.5 sacks in 2021.

Verse has slowly progressed to reaching the same level Johnson was at a year ago. The 6-foot-4, 247-pound lineman has played in seven games this season, racking up 28 total tackles and 4.5 sacks.

He also will have more time to assimilate to the Florida State defense than Johnson did. Verse is only a redshirt sophomore, however, giving him the option to return for another season or two if needed.

Jared Verse’s NIL potential

Verse, who ranked among the top 25 transfers earlier this season, has an On3 NIL Valuation of $256,000. His evaluation ranks No. 158 among college football players.

The On3 NIL Valuation is the industry’s leading index that sets the standard NIL market value for high school and college athletes. The On3 NIL Valuation is a proprietary algorithm that calculates an athlete’s NIL market value using dynamic data points. Those data points target three primary categories, including an athlete’s performance, influence and exposure.

The Florida State defensive lineman has more than 36,000 followers across his social media platforms, including almost 29,000 on TikTok. He has a projected per-post value of $291, too. His evaluation has seen a 779% growth in the last 40 weeks, too, in large part to his transfer.

While the On3 NIL Valuation algorithm includes NIL deal data, it doesn’t act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date. It doesn’t set an athlete’s NIL valuation for the athlete’s entire career. The On3 NIL Valuation calculates the optimized NIL opportunities for athletes relative to the overall NIL market and projects out to as long as 12 months into the future.