The Saga of Nico Iamaleava is a sign of what is coming in university football

So it turns out that when you say a specific dollar value on a rare raw material, the possibility of playing quarterback at a high level and you allow people who own that skill the freedom to shop their talent on the highest bidder, you put the stage for chaos.

No matter how profitable this new era for players, coaches and universities, the chaotic state of the University Football currently hates, and they are going to do everything to restore order as they see. So the seismic shock wave from Knoxville this weekend: Tennessee Quarterback Nico Iamaleava perseveres for more money On the eve of the Vols annual orange and white spring competition … and then on Saturday morning I went to the curb by the VOL program.

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A selection framework SEC program increases its entire season 2025 … because it considers that option that prefers giving in to the requirements of a player.

In 2022 Iamaleava joined De Vols for a zero deal that pays him a reported $ 2 million a year. At the time it seemed a stunning payment or too much payment, but only two years later it looked like a bargain. Carson Beck, for example, reportedly received $ 4 million to jump from Georgia to Miami, and Dukes Darian Mensah is said to be a similar figure in his pocket. (NIL figures can be difficult to snare.)

The difference between those two players and Iamaleava, however, is that they had entered the transfer portal to maximize their earning potential and you will never guess what will open on 16 April. That is why Iamaleava was apparently looking for a larger bag from Tennessee with an obvious, or unspoken threat:

If you don't want me to fit elsewhere next year, pay now.

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The challenge for Tennessee and Iamaleava knew that this is that De Vols will go to a higher aircraft in 2024 and reached the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. Iamaleava earns a large part of the credit for this; Last season he threw 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns against five interceptions (including the play -off game). With Iamaleava under the middle, Tennessee last season was on average more than 35 points per game in a campaign of 10-3.

A holdout put all that in danger and acidified all the goodwill that came from the last two seasons of the Josh Heupel era. But while Iamaleava and his representatives encourage this incident, they only played according to the rules as they exist or not now. They would probably have been the first of many to do this, if Tennessee had not taken a fast and decisive action.

Tennessee's obvious and very much-speaking threat: Take the exercise looking for more money one day and you are the next job looking for a new job.

It is easy to point the finger at players (and of course their representatives) for appreciating money above tradition, loyalty and (not laughing) a course. But they only follow the example of their coaches, their schools and their conferences, all of which have pursued larger dollars at the expense of long -term alliances and histories. College Football is a non-regulated free for everything where everyone throws elbows to make room at the trough.

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Although the athletic department of Tennessee a strong NAM and some would say overly rough position, the flag is planted, the precedent is determined. Pay me or I'm gone Is not going well with the loyalists in Columbus or Athens. Starting your Star Quarterback from the building hours before the spring game is not the ideal state of affairs for an athletic department, but for Tennessee it is preferable to give in to the requirements of the player.

As long as players can switch without a fine, and as long as NIL collectives can determine the market, players who want to maximize their income at school will look elsewhere and the only story of their university, apart from paying, is to give them the opportunity to do that exactly.

This chaotic state of affairs seems to be shouting for a kind of contract between college and talent, but that is dangerously close to the certification of athletes as employees, and the powers that are deep against that classification. So the duct-tapped patchwork of guidelines and recommendations remains in place, vulnerable and vulnerable to anyone who wants to see how far they can push in this new world. And as we have just seen in the very first test of this new dynamic, the fight is on.

Chaos just rose to a new level in the athletics of the university and no player or program is safe.