God knows where the truth lies in all of this, but building off of my first post in this thread (about the 40% realization rates of big time NILs against announced value), remember that players are being promised money that does not exist yet.
I'm not saying it doesn't exist due to the money being committed and the check just not being written quite yet and cashed, I'm saying the coaches know they have X dollars committed or in hand, but are promising 2x dollars in total, for example, because they feel like it will eventually come through or they want to apply pressure to the AD's office to keep fundraising.
Again, who knows where the truth lies, but until this has some semblance of order, this is going to keep happening. Before NIL and the no-sitting-out-one-year transfer rule/portal, coaches lied all the time to athletes and recruits or kept it murky, it probably isn't going to stop.
Personally, I'll be honest, I don't really care if Sluka got a better offer, is lying about the $100k and is bowing out now (to be clear, I don't think that happened), I don't like it and I'd be mad if I was a UNLV fan, but I don't really care. Guys have been sitting out bowl games for a while, there was basically an open bidding war for Cam Newton (I was reminded of this on Reddit, why I'm using the example), we landed Kyle McCord because our coach got on a private jet and committed a lot of money to him and probably a starting spot.
It's all a sliding scale and what you're willing to deal with. Sluka sitting? Whatever. The RB redshirting because he wasn't getting PT, fine. The USC DL kid redshirting, hey, come play at Syracuse next year.
Get to 10 wins. Get us to the playoffs. Make sure Fran has the money he needs.