The past few days have not been kind to now-former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava. The saga began last week, when word broke that the former five-star recruit was looking to renegotiate his current NIL compensation, which was slated to come in at just over $2 million for the 2025 season. Josh Heupel and the Vols weren't having it, and before anyone knew what hit them, Iamaleava was headed for the transfer portal.
It didn't take long for everyone to realize that was a mistake. One potential suitor after another has told Iamaleava to take a hike, at least at his current asking price; at this point, it'd be a surprise if he even came close to making what he was set to make in Knoxville this year, and there might not be a Power 5 opportunity available to him.
At this point, it's clear that Iamaleava miscalculated his leverage and overplayed his hand. Or, more accurately, the people around him did, led by his father Nic. And now that things have gone sideways, they're finally doing some damage control that no one should be buying.
No one should buy Nico Iamaleava camp's spin on Tennessee departure
Front Office Sports published a story on Wednesday in which they spoke to a "close family friend of Nic [Nico's father] who has been heavily involved in his son’s NIL negotiations". Unsurprisingly, that friend offered a decidedly pro-Iamaleava spin on recent events, one that runs contrary to most other reporting to date. Also unsurprisingly, it doesn't pass the smell test.
"The narrative was bullshit," the friend said. "His representation hasn’t steered him wrong. At the end of the day, what did we do wrong to steer him and put him in a bad situation? We didn’t.”
Iamaleava's camp — which includes his father, a coach named Cordell Landers and "at least one lawyer", per Front Office Sports, none of whom are certified agents — can scream that until they're blue in the face, but it's hard to look at Iamaleava's market right now and conclude that he's better off than when he was making $2 million-plus to start for a College Football Playoff contender in the SEC.
The friend also insists that this whole situation was never about money; instead, it was about Iamaleava's supporting cast, and his desire to make sure that Heupel surrounded him with a better offensive line and receiving corps than he got in 2024.
“Nico’s not asking for no money," the friend said. "He don’t even have those money conversations."
Which is fair enough; Iamaleava suffered multiple concussions over the course last season, and he got beat up so much in the Vols' CFP quarterfinal loss to Ohio State that his helmet literally cracked. But FOS also reports that Iamaleava's camp did, in fact, ask for a raise in addition to those personnel changes, then refused to communicate with Tennessee coaches as the spring wore on.
And of course they did! If this really were just about the roster, the last few weeks and months would've played out very differently. The simplest answer is almost certainly the correct one: Iamaleava's camp saw the cash being splashed for quarterbacks they felt were at least Nico's peers, if not his lessers, and moved to try and secure some more money — both for the player and for themselves.
And now, rather than being honest about that, they've waited several days for the narrative to set in and then tried to tell everyone that they've got it all wrong. Maybe they thought Iamaleava would've found greener pastures by now. But that was naive, at best, and in their excitement all they've really done is mess with the future of a 20-year-old.