A Venn diagram of Spring Game Performances and Things That Really Matter would be two circles leaving plenty enough room for the Holy Spirit in the middle. They can be fun, and they’re not totally irrelevant, but a list of spring game MVPs in the past few decades ain’t littered with Hall of Famers. Many schools across the country have already done away with them, and Tennessee’s annual Orange & White Game on Saturday was a performance that suggested, “We’re just here so we don’t get fined.” People paid $10, and they got approximately $10 worth of entertainment in a game that technically ended in a 14-14 tie, which was appropriate for a game where no one knew whether Orange or White possessed the ball unless points were scored on that drive.
Multiple people have told this writer in recent weeks that Tennessee coach Josh Heupel would be happy to do away with the spring game, and one sympathizes with his situation. In this era, especially, why would you want to put anything from the spring on film for public consumption? Football coaches have always been paranoid — sometimes justifiably, sometimes comically, sometimes both — about anything from their teams ever being filmed by anyone that isn’t within their program, but the paranoia in the transfer portal era is justifiable in the purest sense of the word. Why would you want to put any non-game film of any non-starter into the world? You might as well give those kids jerseys that say, “Improperly Contact Me.”
Until Friday morning, Heupel understandably wouldn’t have wanted anyone getting a peek at Jake Merklinger or George MacIntyre going wild in the spring game, because then Tennessee would have to allocate more NIL resources than expected to keep their backup quarterbacks in the program. Because things like that are now things college football coaches have to consider. Because that’s the world now.
But then Friday morning happened, and suddenly Merklinger and MacIntyre joined Heupel as three of the four central characters in this weekend’s story.
If you’ve communed with nature the past few days and just returned to the land of cell service, here’s some breaking news: Nico Iamaleava and the Tennessee football program have parted ways. There’d been friction between Iamaleava’s camp and Tennessee’s NIL apparatus for a while, but things between the player himself and those in the program outwardly seemed fine until the past few days.
The gist: A report from On3’s Pete Nakos emerged Thursday that Iamaleava’s camp was renegotiating his NIL compensation — which, according to various reports and information provided to GoVols247 by sources, was believed to be in the $2.4 million range for this season. Iamaleava’s father and handler came out publicly on social media and in some interviews, and they strongly denied that report while attacking Nakos, saying they were happy with Iamaleava’s contract. Then Iamaleava failed to show up for practice Friday morning and ghosted everyone in the program trying to contact him. Heupel then immediately decided Tennessee was done with Iamaleava, and he informed the team Saturday morning.
So, yeah, a lot.
Consider the turn of events. Iamaleava had a taco dinner Thursday night with offensive coordinator Joey Halzle, Halzle’s family and the rest of the team’s quarterbacks, and everyone seemed to enjoy the moment. Then the team practiced Friday morning, and Iamaleava wasn’t there. And he didn’t return calls or texts from anyone in the program. It was a dramatic turn from a player whose attendance and effort inside the building had never been questioned. No matter what was going on with his camp and the NIL apparatus, when it was time to work, Iamaleava arrived on time and worked as hard as anyone.
It’s a weird situation. Slice it any way you want, and you’re left with pieces of weirdness. Everyone seemed fairly certain why Iamaleava wasn’t at practice, but the complete lack of communication alarmed some to the point that they were at least a bit concerned for his welfare.
There’s also an element of sadness in this. Iamaleava has always been a quiet person, but he was by nearly every account a popular presence in the program. People enjoyed being around him. Heupel and Halzle genuinely loved him. He was recruited to this program and this system for a reason, and this offense, especially with Dylan Sampson now preparing for the NFL Draft, was being built around him. No revisionist history can change that.
Some situations have winners and losers, but some have only winners and only losers. We have no idea at this point who will fall where in the final chapter of this story. Heupel and his players, to their credit, were infinitely more candid than this writer expected when they sat in the Neyland media center Saturday and took question after question after question about Iamaleava. They won that press conference, by a landslide, and they made their points without going below the belt.
But will those good vibes remain if Tennessee goes 8-4 or worse this season, and Iamaleava takes another team to the College Football Playoff? No. They won’t. And anyone suggesting otherwise is silly.
Major risks were taken on both sides here. Iamaleava’s camp clearly went all in with its demands, and Tennessee called the bluff, pushing a significant amount of its chips toward the center of the table. One side could win, and the other could lose. Or both sides could win. Or both sides could lose.
On some level, this was a cold, calculated business decision from both sides in a cold, calculated transactional college football landscape. Tennessee thought Iamaleava was adequately compensated, and that it had done more than enough on multiple fronts for multiple years to be treated with more respect by the player’s camp. Iamaleava’s camp wasn’t satisfied and wanted more on multiple fronts — more for the player, and more proven commodities in his supporting cast of blockers, catchers and runners.
Lest we consider anyone blameless in this mess, it should be noted that the original report making this public and quickly accelerating this simmering situation came from Tennessee’s end, per the reporter himself. We have no way of knowing how things would have gone down if that hadn’t happened, but it happened, and we all saw the result. Iamaleava’s camp was furious, and then it handled things really poorly, leaving Tennessee looking like the rightfully aggrieved party and undisputed winner in this round of public discourse. We don’t know and shouldn’t speculate why it leaked, but it did, and that allowed the Vols higher ground heading into the public part of this squabble.
So many people in and around so many college athletic departments have begged for someone, somewhere to punch back in a system that’s designed to give all of the leverage to athletes. After getting a raw end of the deal for decades, athletes currently have every single advantage, and two wrongs don’t make a right there. These NIL contracts aren’t binding commitments of any length, and the portal is open multiple times per year, so there’s no reason for athletes and those around them to do anything but demand a raise every time single the portal is about to open. We call some of these “advisors” leeches, and that’s exactly what some of them are, but the current system is a layup for them. No one had the spine to risk telling them “no” until Tennessee once again took the lead and made a move that was cheered by several general managers of other Power Four programs — but, crucially, people who still felt comfortable enough to be quoted only in anonymity.
The feckless, rudderless, at-this-point-pointless NCAA is the villain of this story. Its generations’ worth of greed and cowardice put this cow pie on everyone’s plate, and the degree to which it’s even capable of a relevant role in a solution is and should be up for debate.
Failing a longterm solution, the current lay of the land is one where a large chunk of the populace became a missile looking for a singular target to focus its explosive rage against this stupid machine. We have our answer. Iamaleava is the goose in a circle of ducks. He was always more likelier than most to become that athlete, because he was one of the first and most prominent faces of this new era, and that hasn’t changed despite several quarterbacks currently making more money than him — and, in defense of those players, most of them have fairly earned more, given their performance on the field.
Iamaleava has rightfully earned some scorn for his part in this drama, but he certainly doesn’t deserve this much vitriol from this many people from this many corners of the country. Fine, many people don’t love this system. Join the crowd. But he’s not a system. He’s one 20-year-old person — and this writer firmly believes most people that age are in fact kids, despite legally being adults. You’re welcome to disagree there, but this side won’t flinch on that front. Yes, he’s a millionaire. Yes, he’s a public figure. Yes, when you’re a millionaire and public figure, you’re much more open to criticism than others your age. You sign the contract, you agree to the terms. That’s the deal.
But imagine yourself as a 20-year-old whose only chance to publicly save your own face comes from throwing your own father under a bus in front of millions of people. To each their own, but this writer wouldn’t do that at 42, let alone 20. And a 42-year-old should, in theory, have an easier time understanding his dad is a flawed human like every other human and might be wrong. At 20? No chance. None.
If you consider that scenario and can’t find enough empathy to at least cool your heels a bit, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Regardless, here’s a point on which we all can agree: Iamaleava’s time at Tennessee is done, and the Vols now have QB1 uncertainty heading into the summer.
Still, it could be worse. Merklinger and MacIntyre are solidly eight stars’ (and at one point nine stars’) worth of quarterback prospects, and Heupel made it clear on Saturday that Tennessee will try to add a scholarship quarterback in this portal window. An optimist would tell you every vacancy is a chance to improve a situation. The Vols again have a roster that looks like a College Football Playoff contender, and, hey, we know they have at least $2.4 million to spend on the quarterback position, so they’ll head into this window near the top of the food chain. Iamaleava’s chances of getting a raise and finding a guaranteed starting spot on a better roster aren’t impossible, but they’re also not great.
But Iamaleava is no longer Tennessee’s concern. And if Tennessee gets things right in the coming weeks and then coming months, anything he does or doesn’t do won’t be of consequence to the Vols, either.
Facts, as we know, care not for anyone’s feelings. The fact is Tennessee and Nico Iamaleava have parted. The other fact is we don’t know whether anyone will win. Maybe everyone wins. Or maybe it’s like the 14-14 tie in Saturday’s Orange & White Game, a game where many players literally played for both teams in a game neither side won.
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