Tennessee & Nico Iamaleava are in active contract negotiations ahead of the 2025 season

#480
#480
SayUWantAreVOLution said:
That's fine if you're willing to risk starting a guy who has virtually no college playing experience and has been expecting to be QB2 or QB3.

Underachieving or game manager or whatever, Nico has experience which as we saw with Nico in our SEC games MATTERS against the real competition. Early on here it was "He's a RS-FR. Give him some time. You can't expect him to be great against SEC competition right off the bat."

If we're going to be a "one and done" QB school that's fine. Don't be surprised if you see the same thing from Merk next year and G-Mac after that and Faizon after that. Like Ohio State did, if you want a seasoned, quality QB you'll pay for it. If you don't, someone else will.
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Florida did pretty well with a true freshman. In fact, Lagway outperformed Nico in every way.
 
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#481
#481
joevols89 said:
That isn’t shutting it down. Shutting it down would be telling Nakos, no that isn’t true. We are happy with his contract, aren’t negotiating and he isn’t considering transferring. Instead he chose to play dumb and says he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and it didn’t come from him.
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I would say telling Nakos he has no idea what he is even talking is pretty much saying it isn't true. The bigger aspect is, if that conversation took place, why did Nakos report the information from his source without any mention of the family refuting the information?
 
#483
#483
Dewey said:
Thamel, Chris Low and others are all over this. 'Surprise to staff and players he didn't show'

PR damage is done, fellas.
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0 good looks on this then. I guess he isn't really the leader of this team going into the second season as starting QB. Unless he is sick or hurt unexpectedly, it looks like all he cares about is money.

We still have to sit and suffer through the "there are no other good options!" talk. In no other sport do we allow players to hold entire teams hostage. What happens in the NFL when players try to do that? Oh yeah, they get penalized heavily. Now that college is NFL lite, its time to make up the stakes for the players too. You can't be allowed to skip team events while being payed a small fortune. Dock his pay.
 
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#488
#488
From Patrick Brown at 247

Why Nico Iamaleava is a player to avoid in the Heisman odds | 247Sports Ultimate CFB Show
What had been a quiet spring for the Tennesseefootball program is now anything but with an emerging saga around its most high-profile player. One report of ongoing and unresolved NIL contract negotiations between the Vols and starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava less than a week before the transfer portal opens has set off a firestorm over the past nearly 24 hours. There has been follow-up reporting suggesting “high-stakes uncertainty” between the Vols and Iamaleava, online backlash from Tennessee fans and pushback on all of it on social media from two people close to the quarterback.

There appear to be more questions than answers at this point. Will Tennessee take the necessary steps to keep Iamaleava, or could his time with the Vols be nearing an end? Where could he land if he does leave? How does he recover his image if he is back in orange? How did it get here and who is to blame?

This is a level of drama that Tennessee football has very rarely encountered under fifth-year head coach Josh Heupel, but was commonplace under each of his four predecessors – here is our attempt to make sense of it all.



On3 reported on Thursday afternoon that Iamaleava and Tennessee were in “active contract negotiations” for the upcoming season. Iamaleava’s father, Nicholaus, and Cordell Landers, a close family friend in California who was formerly the former assistant director of player personnel at Florida, pushed back on the report publicly. Nicholaus Iamaleava suggested the report came from Tennessee’s staff, contended he had “no idea” about the supposed negotiations and claimed the information “ain’t from us.”

“The family are happy (with Tennessee,” Landers told CBS Sports. “There are no (contract negotiations), they’re happy with the contract they have.”

Those words and social media posts could be an attempt to save face publicly after plenty of backlash was sent Iamaleava’s way from Tennessee fans and others after On3’s report on Thursday. The notion that Tennessee leaked that it was actively negotiating a new deal with its own quarterback ahead of portal window is far-fetched on its surface. That would be a level of self-immolation this program has largely avoided during Heupel’s tenure.

Per CBS Sports, a rumor that Iamaleava might test the market by jumping into the portal “rippled through the West Coast,” though the report went on to add that one source at Tennessee “expressed little concern” about where things stood with Iamaleava and the Vols.

There were rumors, too, back in December that Iamaleava might hop in the portal when Tennessee also had to keep some high-profile players out of it after the end of the 2024 season.

On its face, the timing of the reported negotiations – two days before the Orange & White Game and six days before the spring portal window opened – looked like an obvious leverage play from Iamaleava’s side of things. The quarterback is believed to have been working on his original NIL deal, the one that got him in the crosshairs of NCAA investigators as they targeted Tennessee again shortly after the conclusion of the Jeremy Pruitt violations case. Tennessee went all out to protect Iamaleava with University leadership calling out the NCAA’s motives and actions and the Tennessee attorney general filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA.

The state won a preliminary injunction in February 2024 that barred the NCAA from investigating and trying to enforce its own NIL guidelines.

Iamaleava’s contract through Knoxville-based agency Spyre Sports was a pioneering one that set the market for big-time college players and quarterbacks in particular. Reporting at the time by The Athletic revealed that the contract could pay him more than $8 million by the end of his junior season. The outlet at the time didn’t name Iamaleava as the recruit getting the big deal, but later did.

Sources have indicated to GoVols247 that Iamaleava has remained on that original deal during his time at Tennessee. We believe there were some talks on a new deal back in December, but supposedly the conversations between Tennessee and Iamaleava’s side then were about the program’s plan for other positions on the offense. The situation now appears to be about the player himself and a de facto response to some other college quarterbacks getting multi-million dollar NIL deals that basically reset the market after transferring this offseason.

Players having their NIL contracts updated during the offseason is standard fare in this era of college football, but many of those negotiations play out behind the scenes. They have and do at Tennessee, and the Vols generally have done a good job of keeping those things under wraps, at least the past couple of offseasons and in an instance or two in the cycle earlier this offseason. But Iamaleava is at least the fourth to take things public with threats of going to the portal, basically a leverage play to force Tennessee’s hand.

Those moves worked for defensive back Boo Carter and wide receiver Mike Matthews, whose situations were resolved quickly. They now appear to be set up to be two young stars for the Vols in 2025. Then starting cornerback Rickey Gibson III went public saying he would enter the portal a week before the start of spring ball, but the junior was at every practice over the past few weeks and is expected to stay with the Vols.

Per the CBS Sports report, the Vols “were caught off guard when they saw their business being aired out on social media” and frustrated that Iamaleava made no “public show of unity” by addressing or denying the reported negotiations.

It’s hard to see Tennessee and Iamaleava going their separate ways now given what the program has invested in him, but taking things public would seem to make his future with the Vols tenuous at best. Adding to the uncertainty is we heard he was not at practice on Friday morning. Tennessee has its spring game on Saturday and held a closed version of its “fast Friday” practice it has the day before games during the season.

This could amount to a standoff over the player’s value in the eyes of the program and the eyes of those around him. With just redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger and freshman George MacIntyre at quarterback, it would be a huge gamble for the Vols not to do what needed to be done to keep Iamaleava. But Tennessee also might say enough is enough and let him walk, though a concern the program will have to consider is if his departure would lead to other high-profile players following suit in the impending spring window.

The longer it carries on, the more likely it becomes that the two sides could pass a point of no return.

Iamaleava can’t transfer to an SEC school because he’s leaving in the spring, but there almost certainly is a quarterback-needy program out there somewhere with the necessary funds lying around to make it happen for a five-star talent who led an SEC team to the College Football Playoff as a redshirt freshman.

Sure, running back Dylan Sampson, the 2024 SEC Offensive Player of the Year, and a top-five defense orchestrated by Broyles Award finalist Tim Banks were the main characters in Tennessee’s Playoff run. Iamaleava threw for just 2,616 yards on nearly 64% completions with 22 total touchdowns (19 passing, three rushing), three rushing scores and 358 rushing yards and ranked 10th in the SEC in passing and tied for seventh in passer rating in his first season as the starter. But he still had his share of moments in helping the Vols win 10 games for a second time in three seasons and Tennessee was confident he would be even better as a second-year starter this fall.

Only time will tell how much longer into 2025 Tennessee and Iamaleava will continue along together.
 
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#491
#491
VOL931 said:
Florida did pretty well with a true freshman. In fact, Lagway outperformed Nico in every way.
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Would you like to back that claim up with facts? Nico had a higher completion %, better TD/Int ratio(by a lot) and a significantly better QBR.
 
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#493
#493
OrangeInKy said:
Low and Price it are about as reliable is it gets imo
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This is the turning point for me on this story too. Low in particular because of his national pull and connections. He will not jeopardize his reputation.

Let Nico walk. He can go play at USC and we can just roll with Merk. The juice isn't worth the squeeze with Nico if his dad is going to be holding his hand out for another payday every time his son gets tackled.
 
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#495
#495
I know I have to be delicate here, because if I say the wrong thing the player empowerment people will jump down my throat and crucify me for not defending Nico, but this is getting close to being a final straw for my support of him.

He’s paid more than handsomely right now given his level of success on the field. He reportedly was making $2 million a year, and one of those years he sat on the bench doing nothing as an 18-year old and was paid simply based on a recruiting ranking.

He had a fine year last year, but nothing he’s done warrants the hold out and not showing up to practice. He hasn’t even earned the right to be a drama queen yet.

If he’s going to cause this much trouble, let him go. Give Merk or Mac a chance. I don’t care. I’ve become numb to our ultimate success on the field with all of the NIL drama these days, so play someone who isn’t going to hold you hostage.
 
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#496
#496
Dewey said:
There was no practice access today but I’m told Nico was not at practice today. I don’t know if or when Tennessee will comment on this with nothing scheduled until after the O&W game tomorrow.

-AP
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InB4 this is nothing yet again.
 
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