Nico Iamaleava will play another season at UCLA.
The Bruins quarterback made his announcement on Monday via social media. There was some question about Iamaleava’s future in Westwood after the coaching change at UCLA.
Iamaleava made headlines with his sudden departure from Tennessee ahead of the program’s spring game. He entered the transfer portal and quickly settled on UCLA as his new home. The move prompted a quarterback swap, as App State transfer QB Joey Aguilar re-entered the portal after transferring to UCLA in December and decided on Tennessee as his home for 2025.
It was an up-and-down year for Iamaleava. He completed 64.4% of his passes for 1,928 yards and 13 touchdowns with 7 interceptions. Iamaleava was UCLA’s leading rusher with 505 yards on 112 carries. With 4 scores on the ground, he accounted 17 of UCLA’s 24 TDs in 2025.
Iamaleava’s best performance in 2025 came in UCLA’s upset of then-No. 7 Penn State. He had 5 TDs (3 rushing, 2 passing) as part of his 294 yards of total offense in the game.
Still, 2025 was a statistical down year for Iamaleava as a passer. In 2024, at Tennessee, he threw for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns with just 5 interceptions.
UCLA went 3-9 in 2025. The Bruins fired DeShaun Foster after the third game and named Tim Skipper the interim coach for the remainder of the season. Bob Chesney, who led James Madison to the College Football Playoff, is the program’s new full-time head coach.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
