Chris Low
The wait for where former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava plays next in his collegiate career continued Wednesday as the spring transfer portal opened up.
UCLA is among the schools interested in Iamaleava, but not for nearly the money he was asking for from Tennessee, sources told ESPN. One source said UCLA is content to “sit tight” while Iamaleava considers his options.
“We’ll see if it gets worked out. He’s extremely talented with starting experience against elite competition. That’s sort of where we are right now,” the UCLA source told ESPN.
Sources told ESPN that Iamaleava wanted at least $4 million from Tennessee and that what UCLA is prepared to offer him isn’t remotely close to that figure. Iamaleava was earning $2.4 million at Tennessee under the contract he signed with Spyre Sports Group, the Tennessee-based collective, when he was still in high school. It’s a deal that would have paid him in the $10 million range had he stayed four years at Tennessee.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel announced Saturday after the Volunteers’ spring game that the program was moving forward without Iamaleava after he missed practice and meetings Friday and didn’t alert anybody on the team or return any calls or text messages afterward.
Heupel thanked Iamaleava and called the situation unfortunate, but added, “There’s no one bigger than the Power T, and that includes me.”
Iamaleava, a rising redshirt sophomore, officially entered the transfer portal on Wednesday with a do not contact tag. He called Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle later Friday to tell him he was entering the portal but didn’t correspond with Heupel.
Sources told ESPN that Iamaleava’s representatives asked to redo his deal just before the close of the winter portal back in December after Tennessee’s playoff loss to Ohio State, but his deal was unchanged and Iamaleava did not enter the winter portal. His father, Nic Iamaleava, also wanted Tennessee to surround his son with better receivers and a more effective offensive line in pass protection.
Before the start of spring practice this year, Iamaleava’s representatives reached out to Oregon gauging its interest in Iamaleava, but Oregon said it wasn’t interested, sources told ESPN, and Oregon then notified Tennessee that Iamaleava was being shopped to the Ducks.
Iamaleava, a five-star prospect from Long Beach, California, was recruited by UCLA out of high school, and his younger brother, Madden Iamaleava, committed to UCLA out of high school, but changed his commitment at the last minute and signed with Arkansas.
With Iamaleava a possibility at UCLA, sources told ESPN that representatives for the Bruins’ current quarterback, Joey Aguilar, have been covering their bases and making calls to other schools to gauge their interest in Aguilar, who transferred from Appalachian State this offseason and exited spring practice as UCLA’s likely starter.
A Power 4 general manager told ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Max Olson earlier this week that he thought Iamaleava has “zero market,” and added that it would be an “interesting test of how smart and disciplined colleges are in looking at him.”
Iamaleava helped guide Tennessee to the College Football Playoff last season in his first year as a starter. He passed for 2,616 yards, 19 touchdowns and 5 interceptions, but in nine games against SEC opponents and Ohio State in the playoff, he passed for more than 200 yards just twice.
