If we’re being honest, this was bound to happen.
In a world where the confluence of hefty price tags, transfer portal deregulation and a cellphone and Instagram account can make you an NIL agent, the situation involving Tennessee and QB Nico Iamaleava was really a when, not if.
For those playing catch-up, word started leaking late last week that Iamaleava and Tennessee were at an impasse over his NIL contract situation. That eventually led to the star signal-caller skipping Tennessee practice on Friday. By the end of the weekend, Iamaleava, who per ESPN is being repped by his father, Nic, and former Florida staffer Cordell Landers, was headed to the portal and out of Knoxville.
Two things can be true here: 1) Iamaleava and those representing him are well within their rights to barter related to his value in hopes of landing a bigger payday; 2) Tennessee and coach Josh Heupel are also entitled to stand firm on what they’ve paid Iamaleava (estimated at around $2 million) and move on without him if the situation becomes untenable.
“Today’s landscape of college football is different than what it has been.” Heupel said after Tennessee’s Orange and White spring game on Saturday. “It’s unfortunate, just the situation and where we’re at with Nico.
“I want to thank him for everything that he’s done since he’s gotten here. Obviously, we’re moving forward as a program without him. There’s no one that’s bigger than the Power T, and that includes me.”
The reality in college sports these days is there is no true structure. The House settlement, while on-paper is a monumental measure that could help streamline pieces of the disorder that exists within the ecosystem, wouldn’t be a catch-all.
Congressional help in regulating the space also still feels like a pie in the sky, though dozens of administrators and power brokers descended on Capitol Hill to plead their case last week.
What that disorder leads to is exactly what happened in Knoxville.
Iamaleava, to this point in his career, has been a middle-to-upper tier quarterback in the SEC. That pays, though clearly not what he and his family might have wanted from the Tennessee brass.
Heupel and his staff, too, are now forced to reset at quarterback with just four months until the Volunteers’ season opener against Syracuse in Atlanta.
Iamaleava will find a landing spot. A quarterback with the size and skill he’s flashed during his time in orange and white -- even if it wasn’t consistent enough at times -- doesn’t hit the market every offseason.
But if any of us think this is the last situation of this kind, I’d be hard pressed to believe another similar circumstance isn’t right around the corner.
