Tennessee Coming for Big 12 QB?

College football has some major problems. 

If that wasn’t already apparent enough, the Nico Iamaleava situation at Tennessee this week made it glaringly obvious. 

Iamaleava came to the Volunteers with a bevy of hype but was somewhat underwhelming in his first year as a starter in 2024. He finished tenth in the SEC in passing yards per game, but Tennessee did make it to the College Football Playoff, largely thanks to a great defense and running game. 

The Vols gave Iamaleava a four-year, $8 million NIL deal in 2022 that started paying him while he was a senior in high school. That same contract was set to pay him $2.2 million this year, but it wouldn’t be enough. 

Word leaked last Thursday that Iamaleava’s camp was trying to renegotiate their deal. Rumors swirled that they had back-channeled with schools like Miami, USC, and UCLA, which led to a demand for $4 million this year from Tennessee’s collective. 

On3’s Pete Nakos, a well-respected reporter, was the first to report the negotiation issues. Iamaleava’s father responded by cursing at him on Twitter and calling the report inaccurate. 

On Friday, Iamaleava skipped Tennessee’s scheduled practice. It was a good old-fashioned no-call, no-show. 

That was the final straw for Volunteers Head Coach Josh Heupel. He decided to part ways with his starting quarterback just one day before the end of spring football. 

Welcome to the era of college football holdouts. 

The sport is in a place where players can sign deals with schools that tie them to absolutely nothing. Just ask Baylor basketball fans how that goes. 

“Agents” who are supposed to be working in the best interest of college football players routinely make reckless moves like this that aren’t in the player's best interest. 

In a critical year for Iamaleava’s development, he’ll be starting totally fresh in a new system and new environment post-spring football. He will also be showing up with a wave of negative media attention behind him. 

Good luck, kid. 

Many in the college football world are celebrating Heupel putting his foot down. Big 12 schools should be chief among them in one regard. 

Giving in to Iamaleava’s demands would have set the NIL bar way too high for mediocre quarterback play. It would have also triggered a chain reaction of QBs across the country asking for more money. 

It’s the same reason there is plenty of grumbling across the college football world about what Texas Tech has been paying players in the portal this year. The Red Raiders set the market at multiple positions, which took more NIL money out of multiple Big Ten and SEC schools’ pockets. 

There’s another way the ripple effects of this could be felt in the Big 12. 

Tennessee now desperately needs a quarterback, and with SEC rules preventing intraconference transfers during the spring portal window, the Vols naturally look toward the Big 12 and ACC. 

Two names that have garnered some run within Tennessee fan circles online are K-State’s Avery Johnson and Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt. 

Oregon reached out to Leavitt during the last portal window but couldn’t get him to move. Leaving for Tennessee this late in the game doesn’t seem like a move that would be more enticing. 

Johnson is already in the same pay range as what Iamaleava was making in Knoxville and now has an OC that he loves, his buddy as his top receiver, his childhood friend at running back, and his parents living close by. 

I’m not naive enough to ignore that Tennessee is a great football program in an excellent conference. I’m sure they will be desperate enough to overpay. Nothing should surprise you in college football these days, but I don’t think either of these guys would make the jump to Rocky Top. 

Somebody will lose their QB1 to the Vols, though, which will set off a chain reaction of schools poaching each other to backfill the most important position on the field.

None of this is good for anybody. There are no real winners here. College football desperately needs good, altruistic leadership that can fix its current state. 

What You Need to Know

• If you want the full, grisly details on how things between Tennesse and Nico Iamaleava fell apart, check out this behind-the-scenes look from The Athletic.

• After initial speculation that Texas Tech might get involved in trying to land Iamaleava, Zach Barnett from Football Scoop quickly shut that down. The Red Raiders feel just fine rolling with Behren Morton at QB, which is the correct decision here, even if they have the money needed to land the former Volunteer. 

• Three Big 12 teams made the list of BetOnline’s best odds to be the team that lands Iamaleava, though one of those is Texas Tech. Check out the other two here. 

• A couple of college basketball’s most prominent voices think Texas Tech is a legitimate national title contender next season. Trilly Donovan took to Twitter to say as much yesterday, and The Field of 68 has the Red Raiders ranked third, joining Houston and BYU in the top five. 

• Who should buy stock in for the 2025 Big 12 football season? Who should you sell? I have your answers in my latest YouTube video, and my biggest buy will surprise you. 

Enjoying Open For Business? It would mean the world to me if you could share the newsletter with three of your friends who want Big 12 news without SEC or Big Ten bias. Tell them to sign up at OFBNews.com and get started today!