Mario Cristobal makes crystal clear that Miami won't tolerate a Nico Iamaleava situation

The aftershocks of Tennessee's pseudo-dismissal of star quarterback Nico Iamaleava on Saturday have been widespread in just 24 hours. It was the first instance of a top Division I football program refusing to be extorted for more NIL money from a player. Iamaleava refused to appear for spring practices after his representatives demanded a new $4 million contract.

With the NCAA transfer portal reaching peak participation, more and more players are chasing the dollar bills to programs that can pay them their worth for maximum playing time. One of those programs was the University of Miami.

Former Georgia QB Carson Beck departed Kirby Smart's team for the sunny shores of Coral Gables and head coach Mario Cristobal. He signed a lucrative $4 million NIL agreement in January, perhaps why Iamaleava made the demands he did. But if you ask Cristobal, he won't tolerate that kind of behavior.

Mario Cristobal vows to not let a repeat of the Tennessee-Nico Iamaleava saga happen at Miami

Cristobal spoke to reporters on Saturday, where he addressed the situation that unfolded just hours earlier in Knoxville.

“We’re not going to do it at Miami," he said. "If they wanna play holdout, they might as well play get out.”

The rise of NIL and the eventual arrival of revenue sharing in college athletics, thanks to multiple legal settlements the NCAA has agreed to, has opened the door to ugly labor and compensation disputes once thought to only be possible in the NFL and other professional sports.

It feels inevitable that more situations like that which unfolded at Tennessee are coming. Some may remember former UNLV QB Matthew Sluka leaving his team over a verbal NIL agreement that was not honored. Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban's words on that instance feel prophetic now.

"There's a lot of consequences, you know, out there, of this behavior and the culture we've created in college athletics," he told the Pat McAfee Show in late September. "We're really not creating value for people's futures, we're trying to see how much money we can make right now while we're going to college and that's a huge shift in the dynamic of development of college players."

How every program responds to their respective players negotiating for what they believe they're worth will differ but perhaps Tennessee's example and Cristobal's comments will set the bar going forward.