Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava was supposed to be the face of the program — a former five-star prodigy with a rocket arm, flashy potential, and the charisma to lead the Vols into a new era of college football. Instead, he’s now out of the program, just a year into his starting role, and the reason has nothing to do with interceptions or underthrown balls.
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According to multiple reports, Iamaleava walked away from the team after demanding his NIL deal be raised from $2.4 million to $4 million — a figure reportedly influenced by Georgia quarterback Carson Beck’s rumored payday at Miami. Once Nico stopped showing up to practice and ghosted meetings, the Vols were left with no choice but to make it official that they were moving on from the 20-year-old.
This turn of events has quickly grabbed media attention as it paints yet another con of the highly polarizing NIL era. So naturally, Nightcap hosts Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson had thoughts — and not just about the dollar signs.
The former Broncos TE first explained the situation to Ocho before zooming out to hit a deeper point about the money minded mentality in today’s players like Nico Iamaleava.
“You and I talk a lot about this — basing your value on what someone else is making. Come on now. $2.4 million? Maybe he’s looking at it like, ‘Hey, I should get this, I should get that.'”
But then came the gut punch: “If you did something special and nobody told you that it was special, would you still feel special?” Sharpe asked before dropping a quotable: “Never base your value on what someone else has gotten.”
For the former Bronco, betting on yourself is fine as long as you’re not following someone else’s template — a perspective Ocho agreed with. But the former Bengals WR argued that there’s no need to get too philosophical about Nico Iamaleava’s situation, because for Johnson, the fact that the Vols chose to move on from the quarterback says it all.
“If your play is that spectacular, where you feel you need a bump from $2.4 [million] to $4 [million], your play would show exactly why you need that bump. He didn’t come to practice. He didn’t show up. And they moved on from him. What does that tell you?”
Iamaleava’s 2023 season wasn’t pedestrian — he threw for over 2,600 yards, 19 touchdowns, and led Tennessee to a 10-3 record and a CFP appearance. But in the new world of college football, those numbers weren’t enough to force the school’s hand.
As things stand, Iamaleava is now expected to enter the transfer portal. While he may still get a payday elsewhere, in all likelihood, it’ll come with a different jersey and a big asterisk next to how things ended in Knoxville.
