Tennessee’s Josh Heupel wasn’t the only Southeastern Conference football coach asked Saturday about the abrupt departure of Volunteers quarterback Nico Iamaleava into the NCAA transfer portal after unsuccessfully holding out for more name, image and likeness (NIL) revenue.
Kirby Smart of Georgia has been outspoken on the subject and discussed whether a further flow of such incidents could be coming.
“It’s been spiraling, and it’s continuing to spiral, and I don’t know what reins it in,” Smart said in a news conference after the Bulldogs conducted their G-Day spring game inside Sanford Stadium. “I don’t know that there is anything anybody can do to rein it in. It is what it is, and you have to manage your culture as good as you can, and you have to manage the players you take as good as you can.
“I really focus on the guys who are here and the guys we can get to be here and not worry about the ones who don’t want to be.”
Georgia and Tennessee are scheduled to meet Sept. 13 inside Neyland Stadium in the SEC’s first head-to-head pairing of teams that reached last season’s inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. It could have been billed as an early Heisman Trophy quarterback showcase for Carson Beck and Iamaleava, but Beck left in January following five years in Athens and is now at Miami.
Beck will reportedly make $4 million in NIL opportunities with the Hurricanes this year alone, while Iamaleava is looking to be in that neighborhood. Iamaleava signed with the Vols during the 2023 recruiting cycle for a reported $8 million, which was to be spread out over his time in Knoxville.
Iamaleava was hoping that last season’s run to a 10-3 record and Tennessee’s two youthful backups — redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger and early enrollee George MacIntyre — could be leverage for an enhanced deal. Tennessee obviously had the right to counter, especially given that the 6-foot-6, 220-pounder from Long Beach, California, was paid handsomely to wait behind Joe Milton during the 2023 regular season.
“It’s a part of the game at this point, and every job that anyone has is not going to be 100% exactly what you want,” Heupel said after the Orange & White game when asked about today’s business side of the sport. “At the same time, I can understand a player’s perspective having played the game. There are some benefits to it as well.”
The 2023 signing class will forever be linked to the releasing of the NIL hounds, and seven of the top eight quarterbacks from that collection are no longer at their original school. Arch Manning, who patiently sat behind Quinn Ewers at Texas the past two seasons, is the exception and is now the much-anticipated starter for Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns.
Most of the heralded 2023 quarterbacks are on their second stops, such as Jackson Arnold going from Oklahoma to Auburn this past offseason and Austin Mack transferring from Washington to Alabama one year after Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer made the exact same move. Malachi Nelson signed with Southern California and has since switched to Boise State and UTEP, while Jaden Rashada signed with Florida until a reported $13.85 million NIL deal fell through and has since been at Arizona State and Georgia before entering the portal again in January.
Smart said Saturday that he doesn’t have an issue with the growing number of agents — “They’re doing a job,” he said — as much as a system that has been established without set compensation.
“Sometimes what their comp is and what our comp is are completely different,” Smart said. “Obviously both sides are trying to slant things their way, and that makes it challenging. You don’t have that challenge in the NFL, because it’s public knowledge, so you know what you’re working off of.”
When the Bulldogs and Vols collide later this year, the opposing head coaches will have a combined salary of $22.28 million. That’s more than enough to deal with today’s growing challenges off the field, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay silent.
In Smart’s news conference that kicked off spring practice last month, he said, “I want to see who wants to be a good football player and who really cares about this game. I want to see who cares more about the game than their revenue stream.”
This will be Smart’s 10th season in Athens and Heupel’s fifth in Knoxville. For the first time in those five years, Heupel was asked Saturday why he chooses to stay in it.
“What happens outside of the game in some ways has changed, right?” Heupel said. “The game hasn’t changed. You’ve got to be tough, smart and physical. You’ve got to play extremely hard. You’ve got to have fundamentals and technique. I choose to coach college football because I love dealing with 18- to 22-year-olds most of the time.
“I love the pageantry of college football. The NFL is different — not in a bad way. It’s just different. I love the growth of young people and taking people who show up from different backgrounds and helping them grow. The best part of my day is when they show up every day.”
Especially without renegotiated NIL contract requests.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.
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