KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Thursday evening, Tennessee’s quarterbacks gathered for an annual tradition, with Nico Iamaleava among them.
On their off day ahead of Saturday’s spring game, Tennessee’s quarterbacks sat around the table at quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle’s home. His wife, Cara, made tacos. It was mostly business as usual, despite a report earlier in the day that returning starter Iamaleava was in negotiations for a new contract. He’d all but begun the era of school-affiliated collectives spending big money on recruits when he signed an $8 million deal with Tennessee as a high school senior for his name, image and likeness.
A few hours after the initial report emerged, Iamaleava’s father blasted both the report and reporter, denying negotiations were taking place a week before the 10-day spring transfer portal window opened.
“More games being played off the field than on the field,” his X post read in part.
It was part of a whirlwind 72 hours that ended with the Volunteers publicly parting ways with their returning starting quarterback after a contract dispute that could shift the power dynamics of college sports and impact programs far beyond Tennessee. Three years after signing a game-changing deal, Iamaleava became college football’s first high-profile, public holdout.
Tennessee had gone about its business with a low-key set of spring practices mostly focused on the usual position battles and rebuilding a defense and offensive backfield missing key stars headed to the NFL.
Iamaleava was part of that amid negotiations, and aside from a few minor details, there weren’t many red flags that a divorce was imminent. Tennessee hoped Iamaleava would leap a second-year starter set to make $2.2 million in the final year of a four-year contract that started paying him as a senior in high school.
After Tennessee’s 2024 season ended in Columbus, Ohio, with a lopsided loss to eventual national champion Ohio State in the first round of the 12-team College Football Playoff, Iamaleava’s camp had explored the possibility of a transfer, including engaging in conversations with representatives at Miami, who eventually signed Georgia transfer Carson Beck, paying him more than $3 million.
With Tennessee’s spring season about to wrap, Iamaleava’s camp, including family friend and former Florida personnel staffer Cordell Landers, was adamant nothing was happening.
“The family are happy (with Tennessee),” Landers told CBS Sports. “There are no (contract negotiations); they’re happy with the contract they have.”
It quickly became clear that wasn’t true, despite the public denials. Tennessee officials were frustrated with the ongoing negotiations, said a source briefed on those conversations, but were hopeful for an amicable resolution. Iamaleava does not have an agent; his father and Landers were handling the bulk of negotiations with programs and their collectives.
Friday morning after Iamaleava’s father hit send on that post, Tennessee took to the practice field for its final workout before Saturday’s Orange & White Game.
The Vols’ starting quarterback was a no-show.
Iamaleava hadn’t informed Tennessee he planned to be absent, according to a team source. No one on staff could get in contact with him throughout Friday.
And when Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel walked off the practice field, he learned there was still no word from Iamaleava.
In that moment, Heupel decided the program would be moving on from Iamaleava, who had mixed results in his first year as a starter as a redshirt freshman. He threw 19 touchdown passes, with six in six games against SEC bowl teams; four of those six came in the season finale against Vanderbilt. In three consecutive games at midseason against Arkansas, Florida and Alabama, the Vols failed to score in the first half. Tennessee rallied to beat rivals Alabama and Florida and reached the Playoff, but largely did so on the back of a defense ranked fifth nationally in yards per play and running back Dylan Sampson’s school record 22 touchdowns.
Iamaleava was good, but not good enough for Tennessee’s staff and collective to decide to satisfy a demand nearing the top of the quarterback market at $4 million, according to the source briefed on the conversations. They added that nothing materialized into any meaningful negotiations.
“I’m proud of the stand we took as a university,” former Tennessee coach and athletic director Phillip Fulmer told The Athletic.
Iamaleava’s sudden holdout and departure will have lasting ramifications in the sport. (Photo: Lance King / Getty Images)
Friday’s absence pushed the relationship between Tennessee and Iamaleava to the point of no return, even if Iamaleava managed to salvage his relationship with the coaching staff and Heupel suddenly felt the urge to welcome back his starting quarterback.
“On Friday, he lost the locker room,” one program source said.
Quarterbacks Jake Merklinger and early enrollee George MacIntyre, both made available after Saturday’s spring game, were present at that Thursday dinner but said they found out about Iamaleava’s absence at practice the same time as the rest of their teammates: when he didn’t show.
“I’ve been a part of some really talented teams that haven’t won a whole lot because there were individuals on those teams,” said Alabama transfer tight end Miles Kitselman, who caught four touchdowns from Iamaleava last year, more than any returning player. He added there was “no other group” he wanted to work with and compete alongside than the players Iamaleava left behind.
Iamaleava’s multiyear contract is a rarity; most players sign one-year deals. His original contract from March 2022, the infant days of NIL, was written when the NCAA’s pay-for-play ban still seemed enforceable. There is no stated requirement he play for the Vols to collect his money, but it includes a standard integrity clause that allows for termination if the player does not “conduct himself in a manner exhibiting utmost character and integrity.” The collective also negotiated the exclusive use of his NIL through the end of the term, December 31, 2025. That seemingly means Iamaleava himself would need to terminate the agreement for another school to pay for his NIL rights.
More recent NIL contracts give the collective an out if the player transfers and, in some cases, even include a buyout provision.
In the three years since Iamaleava signed his record-breaking multiyear deal in March 2022, he’s been passed by at least a dozen other quarterbacks and would have been well below the highest-paid at his position in 2025. In that same span, Tennessee mounted a legal defense to preserve his eligibility with the NCAA looking to restrict athletes from signing NIL deals while still in high school. The university enlisted the state’s attorney general, among others, to secure an injunction that allowed Iamaleava to stay on the field and further open the door for more money to flood into locker rooms across the country.
Those efforts have put Tennessee back on the market for a quarterback when the 10-day spring transfer portal window opens on Wednesday. Merklinger is the presumed starter for now.
“With only two scholarship players at the quarterback position, we’re going to have to find another guy,” Heupel said.
Among 247Sports’ top eight quarterbacks in the Class of 2023, Texas’ Arch Manning is now the only one who hasn’t transferred from the school he signed with out of high school.
Where Iamaleava goes next is uncertain. Signing with another SEC school is highly unlikely, as he wouldn’t be immediately eligible because of a conference rule banning immediate eligibility for intraconference transfers who enter the portal after Feb. 1.
A return home to Southern California could be in order. UCLA director of player personnel Stacey Ford coached at Warren High School in Downey, Calif., when Nico, a Long Beach, Calif., native, starred there. Appalachian State transfer Joey Aguilar is projected to be the starting quarterback in Westwood. There were rumors of interest from Texas Tech, one of the biggest spenders in the portal this offseason, but a source familiar with the Red Raiders’ decision-making said they have no interest and will move forward with quarterback Behren Morton, who threw for 27 touchdowns last season.
Some at Tennessee believe that Iamaleava’s decision is not his own, but that he’s following his father’s lead in pursuing the most financially lucrative landing spot with less regard for the fit on the football field or the timing of his exit. Iamaleava will have to learn a new offense and gain the trust of a coaching staff and roster with just a month of practice in preseason camp, a rarity within the sport.
Kevin Pearson, who coached Iamaleava in high school, described Landers as a close and trusted friend to Nic Iamaleava. Landers is well known in high school and college football circles, especially on the West Coast, and has helped numerous high school football players, including Nico, manage their college recruitment. Landers was not directly involved in any of the recent contract talks between Iamaleava and Tennessee’s collective, a person involved in those discussions said.
A source close to the family noted the similarities to Nic’s handling of younger son Madden’s senior season of high school last year. Madden Iamaleava, also a quarterback, transferred from Warren High School to Long Beach Poly three games into the season, along with receiver Jace Brown. His father told the Press Telegram it was to improve the tandem’s chemistry and receive different coaching. Madden never played a game there after being ruled ineligible.
Madden and Brown, then UCLA commits, flipped to Arkansas on signing day and enrolled in January, with his dad acknowledging to 247Sports, “We never even visited Arkansas.”
Iamaleava’s father and Landers have not responded to repeated interview requests from The Athletic.
“At the end of the day, just in a leadership position, you have standards of who you’ve got inside the building and outside of it,” Heupel said. “At the same time, every individual’s a little bit different, so in leadership, just have learned to try to keep a cool head and also understand the dynamics of all situations, family, everything.”
Subtle signs that all was not well had emerged since the end of the season. In December, Iamaleava’s father sent an eyebrow-raising series of tweets as rumors persisted that Iamaleava was testing the transfer market and eyeing an exit from Knoxville.
“Need all the help we can get!” he wrote alongside a parade of crying laughing emojis. Since the deadline for Iamaleava to enter the portal had passed, it was easy to laugh off the lighthearted posts. Then Nic Iamaleava, who had been a fixture at practices through his son’s first two seasons, was absent this spring from practice and the team facility.
“I know they (the Iamaleavas) are very loyal,” said Pearson. “Money is important to everybody, but I don’t think their only reason for doing this is to earn another million and a half dollars. I don’t think (the Iamaleavas) just threw this at (Tennessee).”
Iamaleava’s quiet, aloof nature caused some within the program to question if he could be the kind of vocal leader that marks many of the most successful quarterbacks. He was well-liked within the locker room and facility but didn’t immediately have the kind of command of the team that made his teammates sit up and listen when he spoke. Much of it didn’t come naturally to him as a first-year starter last season.
“People who know him in Knoxville will say he’s one of the nicest, most respectful young kids they ever met,” said Pearson.
Friday’s practice was a light walkthrough ahead of Saturday’s game.
“Man, I loved walking out to practice on Friday and gazing around and seeing if anybody was freaking out or gossiping in the corner. Nobody skipped a beat,” Kitselman said. “I love seeing that. It’s plug-and-play. I knew something needed to be said.”
Kitselman, the offense’s most vocal leader and a fifth-year senior, talked to some teammates and members of the program’s leadership council Friday after practice to gauge their feelings about Iamaleava’s absence and ensure they were on the same page.
Friday evening, after practice concluded, Iamaleava informed Halzle he was planning on filing his paperwork to enter the transfer portal. Saturday morning, Heupel met with the team and informed the players of his decision to move on from Iamaleava, who still had not contacted Heupel. Word quickly spread, leaking to the media before the meeting had concluded.
Less than two hours later, when Tennessee’s buses pulled up to a waiting tunnel of fans for the pre-spring game Vol Walk outside Neyland Stadium, there were no signs of the morning’s news. When Heupel was the first face to emerge from the buses, he was greeted with a raucous cheer as soon as his white sneakers touched the pavement.
“Let’s go!” he yelled as fans applauded the team’s entrance.
Word of Iamaleava’s exit didn’t reach every corner of Tennessee in time. Matthew and Chrissy Grant, 49 and 46, made the 90-minute drive to Knoxville from their hometown of Chattanooga, where Matthew works as a truck driver. They sat near the top of the lowest section of Z13, wearing matching gray Iamaleava jerseys. They didn’t hear the news until they were already on their way to campus. They don’t attend regular-season games and elected to pay the $10 entry fee to see the spring game. A few fans told them they should find some tape and cover up the name.
“I’m upset, but it is what it is,” Chrissy Grant said. “Honestly, I felt he was a little greedy, and I was not expecting that. Because he was awesome last season.”
Tennessee will continue on without Iamaleava, and likely will look to the upcoming transfer window for depth at quarterback. (Photo: Caitie McMekin / News Sentinel / USA Today via Imagn Images)
When Tennessee began the scrimmage portion of the spring game, the crowd came to life after MacIntyre — a Tennessee native — was introduced as quarterback. He capped the first drive with a long touchdown pass to fellow freshman Radarious Jackson.
Like many spring games, Tennessee’s sideline was full of VFLs, former stars in the football program. Naturally, Iamaleava was the topic of the day in nearly every conversation, but few wanted to wade into it publicly. Six players from the 2024 Playoff team declined to comment on Iamaleava’s exit. So did Al Wilson, a program legend whose image hangs on the back of the Neyland Stadium scoreboard overlooking the Tennessee River. He captained the Tennessee defense that won the program’s last national title in 1998.
Hendon Hooker, who took Tennessee to No. 1 in the CFP poll in 2022 and threw for 58 touchdowns and five interceptions as a two-year starter under Heupel, said he and Iamaleava talk often but he hadn’t heard from him since his exit.
“I was just as shocked as everyone else,” Hooker said.
The shockwaves of an SEC starting quarterback leaving the program amid a contract dispute rippled throughout the sport.
SMU coach Rhett Lashlee, who coached his team to the Playoff last fall, told reporters on Friday that if a player held out, he’d be off the roster: “We’re not doing that. You’re either on the team or you’re not.”
Said Miami coach Mario Cristobal: “They can be the best player in the world. If they wanna play hold out, they might as well play get out.”
LSU coach Brian Kelly said he suspects Iamaleava will be just the first holdout in college football, with “a lot” of disputes like it in the future. “This is the natural course when there weren’t many guidelines out there.”
Beyond the lack of No. 8 under center, Tennessee’s spring game played out like so many before it. Around 30,000 fans showed up on a picturesque day.
“The guys who want to be here are the guys who want to be here,” junior linebacker Arion Carter said. “Situations like this, this is a test and testimony of who we are as people and a team. As long as we rally around these young guys and get them better and continue to rise, we’ll be just fine. ”
Heupel stepped to the lectern after his team’s on-field exhibition with two pages of notes, some words marked through with a pink highlighter. A photo of Iamaleava on the wall of the room where Heupel holds postgame news conferences had been taken down. Using notes was a rarity for the usually demure national champion quarterback-turned-coach whose postgame news conferences rarely make headlines. He’d rehearsed his carefully-worded statement.
Heupel thanked Iamaleava by name for all he’d done while wearing the Power T and then said: “There’s no one that’s bigger than the Power T, and that includes me.”
— Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman contributed reporting.
(Top photo of the Volunteers’ spring game: Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
