re: How much were top high school football recruits in the 1980s getting paid under the table?

300ZS by local Datsun dealers.
I think Bert J. drove a Lincoln in the early 70s

take one zero off your amount, and you might be close.

I played at Lsu from 80 until 85 . I saw a player in a brand new jeep and one in a trans am . The two ways you could get money were selling your tickets for over cost and summer jobs .

Varies but it was pretty common; they just looked the other way pretending nothing illegal going on. So NIL is nothing new; it’s simply out in the open now.

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Yep. Poor Jose Vargas from the impoverished Dominican Republic was driving a brand new, two-tone Cadillac with massive clown rims in '86. John Williams had a brand new Jaguar. You could see alot of such things going on if you happened to live in the Pentagon dorms overlooking Broussard Hall. I'm sure Dale Brown had no idea!/

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I thought it was a gold metalflake BMW... whose was that?

And this stuff was understood and nobody ever questioned or challenged it. I remember a football player, a RB from Zachary. Dirt poor family, they lived in a shotgun shack. He got a ticket for going over 100 mph in his brand new Mustang GT, the only explanation was that he was trying to run some bad gas out of it. Nobody blinked an eye on how he had a car worth more than his family home.

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In 83 Karl Malone had a nice Trans Am at Tech.....

Kim drove a Corvette, but probably was from family. Karl's most definitely was not from family. ha

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And for clarity's sake, especially to the younger generations:

a Corvette in the 70's or 80's is not the same thing as a Corvette now. I had a friend in the 80's with a late 70's Vette, it wasn't particularly expensive.

Don't shoot Jose'

Hi C Carter got a moonpie and an RC cola. Daddy Dales goons were lackadaisical handing them over to him. FWIW, the earliest eurostep that I ever saw was Hi C jumping into the lane then shooting a short jumper over the defender. He was a beast at the school that no longer exists in BR called Redemptorist.

My team mate had an uncle that was a big booster of a prominent SW Conference team. He would fly us to home games. During the mid 60s, I saw athletes exit the locker room and proceed down a "receiving line" similar to a wedding and each handshake would pass $100 bill. While teaching at an ACC school in the late 80s - early 90s the men's basketball team was living in the most luxurious townhouses in the area and all were driving high end sports cars. I can't assign a dollar value like a salary, but with 41 years experience in sport related higher education, I saw things that seemed implausible.