Greg McElroy has enough of a pulse on college football to know what’s accurate, and what’s embellished.

In general, McElroy, the former Alabama quarterback, ESPN analyst and co-host on WJOX out of Birmingham, Alabama, believes that name, image and likeness and collectives numbers are overstated. He explained during a recent appearance on the 3 And Out podcast.

“So you’ve gotta consider the source too, right? And a lot of the numbers are coming from representation and agencies,” McElroy said via On3 Sports. “In an effort, I think, to drive up the price of their next client. The numbers that I’ve heard from Division I schools — they are 10 percent of the aforementioned $11 million dollars. And that is on the ultimate high side. It’s a lot of money, there’s no denying that it’s a lot of money. But that is like the highest, that’s the top half of one percent is maybe making a million dollars. There might be ten players in the country that have legitimate million dollar deals. I don’t know the specific numbers but it’s really small.”

McElroy said the more accurate goal for most collectives is $1 million, and if they can get to $1.7 million, they can pay the average scholarship football player in the range of $10,000-$25,000.

“How about this? Will Anderson … his NIL total dealings last year … he made a grand total of zero dollars via NIL last year,” McElroy said. “Zero. Some players, they’re not interested in it. It might be different this year, I’m not sure. I hadn’t heard anything publicly about what [Anderson’s] capable of earning but I know he had ample opportunities last year and said it was a distraction. He didn’t want anything to do with it. He’s just wired differently. Not that that’s praising him or discouraging him or saying he’s crazy or anything like that — just some guys aren’t motivated by it. Some guys don’t care about it. They know their money will come at the next level or they know their money will come down the line with consistent performance.

I don’t think the numbers are as extravagant as some people like to suggest. I think a lot of the coaches are trying to push down what’s expected on the recruiting trail now.”