Everyone assumes that all players just have their hands out, but smart teams are rewarding players they want to keep with new contracts similar to Merk. I know one P4 school that rewarded a productive player from $50,000 last year to 350,000 this year. He never asked, but school knew they needed to step up to keep him. Other schools have offered him more , but he stayed loyal. The same team did the same with their QB and he stayed loyal when UT called him after Nico left.
This same team did this with multiple players before any player asked for more.