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Former Tennessee football quarterback Nico Iamaleava recently transferred to UCLA following NIL drama that reportedly went down during spring ball. Reports surfaced that Iamaleava was negotiating a new NIL deal with Tennessee, and $4 million was the number that was floated around. However, new reports indicate that the buzz surrounding the situation is what actually drove Iamaleava away from the program.
Nico Iamaleava's dad and adviser Corell Landers denied that negotiations were going down after reports started to surface. Sources close to Iamaleava claim that it wasn't true.
“It was a false narrative and they took that s— and ran with it,” a source close to Iamaleava said, according to an article from ESPN. “It became bigger than what it was, when it wasn't even the case.”
To the general public, Nico Iamaleava looked like the bad guy in the situation. Things started to take a turn for the worse after that.
“He's hurt and he's disappointed,” a source close to Iamaleava said. “They're making him look like the villain and the scapegoat.”
A few days before Iamaleava officially entered his name in the college football transfer portal, one of his teammates reportedly heard him say that he was going to enter the portal during a Tennessee football practice.
“I'm getting in the portal, if you need to handle your business,” Iamaleava said as he was walking off the practice field, according to a Tennessee player who heard him.
According to Tennessee sources, there was a sense that Iamaleava was going to leave. Because of that, it wasn't a big surprise when he no-showed for practice shortly before informing his coaches of his decision.
“You kept hearing rumblings all spring that [Iamaleava] one way or the other wouldn't be here in the fall,” one Tennessee source said. “A lot of people were surprised he missed that practice, but it wasn't the first time he missed something he was supposed to be at, so I don't know if anybody should have really been that surprised.”
After Iamaleava made the decision to leave, a lot of people around the program had good things to say about him.
“He was never a troublemaker,” a Tennessee source said. “Worked hard and didn't cause problems in the locker room. He was quiet and kept to himself a lot, sort of had that California cool to him, but it's unfair to paint him as a bad kid.”
Tennessee football head coach Josh Heupel also had a message for Iamaleava after the transfer decision:
“I want to thank him for everything he's done since he's gotten here, as a recruit and who he was as a player and how he competed inside the building,” Heupel said after the spring game. “Obviously, we're moving forward as a program without him. I said it to the guys today. There's no one that's bigger than the Power T. That includes me.”
Now, Nico Iamaleava is with UCLA, and his brother, Madden, joined him there as well. Madden Iamaleava is dealing with some drama from his former program as well.
