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There is a different feel around UCLA football coming into the 2025 season after the Bruins shockingly added star quarterback Nico Iamaleava in the spring transfer window from Tennessee. After Iamaleava mysteriously missed practice in Knoxville one day, he left the Volunteers and chose to transfer to the Bruins.
On Thursday, Iamaleava spoke publicly at Big Ten Media Days and was obviously asked about the whole situation, to which he said he was only there to talk about football and school, not money.
As it turns out, adding the former five-star recruit may have benefited UCLA even more than just getting it a new quarterback. The Bruins have reportedly been getting discounts from some players in the transfer portal who are now willing to take a little bit less money than they originally would have in order to play with Iamaleava, according to Bruce Feldman of The Athletic.
“Nico Iamaleava’s arrival at UCLA sparked a flurry of commitments,” Feldman wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “They’ve added 14 transfers plus 4 four-star linemen.
“UCLA’s GM told @TheAthletic there’s been so much interest in playing w/ Nico, ‘the discounts started happening. Like if their price-point was at 6, and we were at $400K, they were willing to do it.'”
If that trend continues, the Bruins will have a much easier time convincing recruits to come to Southern California to play in the blue and gold. That is exactly what they need in order to rebuild their program and get back to the top of their conference, now in the Big Ten instead of the Pac-12.
Iamaleava had a lot of pedigree coming out of high school and flashed his elite traits at times during his lone season as the starter with Tennessee, but there was a lot of inconsistency and the overall numbers were fairly pedestrian. For the 2024 season, he completed just under 64% of his passes for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns with five interceptions.
The California native will have to be a bit more polished and consistent with his hometown team in 2025. He has the talent to do so, and will need all of that ability if he wants to lead this UCLA team to a successful season.
