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NIL just self-destructed a Playoff contender in Tennessee
By David Wasson
Published:
We have all been blinded by the pomp and circumstance, the fireworks and blinky-blinky lights and HD cameras.
We have all been blinded to what is happening to college football, a billion-dollar enterprise that is so fundamentally broken yet so frustratingly beautiful all at the same time.
We have all been blinded. And there is no going back.
At the risk of sounding like a full old-man-yelling-at-the-clouds, what is going on with the Tennessee Volunteers right now is an absolute abomination on about a half-dozen levels. Tasked to narrow those levels down to a digestible bite, it goes like this – NIL just self-destructed a potential national championship contender.
We all should have seen this coming, both the casual observer and the learned. Nico Iamaleava’s holdout in Knoxville and reported transfer portal move is really only the next logical step in what has been a gradual erosion of the virtues and values of college football – heck, college athletics.
And the idiocy won’t end here. Oh no, it will not.
Iamaleava, Tennessee’s redshirt sophomore quarterback, reportedly surprised both Volunteers coaches and players by no-showing spring practice Friday while seeking a new NIL contract. Imagine trying to explain that last sentence to the sport’s forefathers… a star quarterback is literally holding out for more money.
Not lunch money. Not extra book money. Real money – to the tune of a reported $4 million for the 2025 season.
It is at this point that I wish to make one point painfully (and hopefully obviously) clear: Name, Image and Likeness was never meant to be like this. That incentive was meant for collegiate athletes to be able to capitalize in the marketplace with stuff like replica jerseys, T-shirts with their number on them and their appearance in video games.
Instead, NIL – fueled by true NCAA ambivalence and the gaping wound of a flung-open Pandora’s box – has metastasized into an absolute circus of greed and oneupmanship to the point that a College Football Playoff contender is now in absolute disarray.
Which means a player and a program are now at a standoff. A literal holdout (with a healthy sprinkle of “release me!”) just like we see when a recalcitrant NFL wide receiver pouts his way through training camp hoping to extort a new deal from his billionaire owner.
The news stories that exploded from Iamaleava’s absence referred to this issue as the result of “an evolving landscape” and such. Which is just the soft-shoe for what it really is: naked greed has now fully bloomed in the college game with just as much brightness of hue as all those Augusta National flower beds.
It isn’t like Iamaleava was toiling away at Tennessee for a bag of peanuts and a firm handshake, either. His current NIL deal is reportedly around $2.5 million. The issue within all this is that the current crop of collegiate signal-callers is commanding an even more outrageous sum for their services.
What is a precocious 20-year-old to do based on that information? The answer, clearly, is to take his ball and go home – presumably dragging the entire Volunteers 2025 season with him.
Tennessee does not seem particularly inclined to indulge Iamaleava in this charade, with ESPN reporting the school “wasn’t going to blink and pay him any more money” and coach Josh Heupel reportedly informing the team Saturday morning that the Vols are moving on. Of course, that could change in a heartbeat if a wealthy donor comes off some of that corn-from-a-jar moolah to make up the difference.
In the meantime, Tennessee is unexpectedly left preparing for a 2025 season – albeit in the early stages, but any coach will tell you that every moment matters – without the biggest returning key to its offense. And because the insanity of NIL is paired with the insanity of the transfer portal’s spring session, Iamaleava is now reportedly entering the transfer portal – walking from the Vols and potentially moseying to another school willing to show him the money.
This is nuts, people. Absolute bonkers. None of it is right and just and in any way a part of the spirit that was built by the thousands of Volunteers players that came before him. If anyone thinks that Tennessee is raking in a single extra dime on Iamaleava’s name, image or likeness … well … I have some prized beachfront property in Knoxville to sell you.
College athletics is broken. Nico Iamaleava didn’t break it, oh no, he is just the latest symptom of what is a rapidly self-destructing cluster-you-know-what.
We have all been blinded, but perhaps Iamaleava’s Tennessee holdout and portal entry is helping more folks see this for what it clearly is: a problem with no cure, a mess with no plan to clean it up, a disaster that seemingly will just get worse before anyone figures out a way to make it better.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
