Conventional wisdom is that Nico Iamaleava bargained for more than he could and failed in his attempt to get more money out of the Tennessee Volunteers earlier in the year.
Iamaleava’s play backfired, and he ended up as a less competitive program at UCLA, with less money than he had while at Knoxville and in a significantly more expensive city in Los Angeles.
Not according to Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt. He seems to think that the situation was neither Iamaleava’s fault nor was the conflict about money. For him, it was all about play style and offensive scheme.
On Monday, in a joint program with sports pundit Colin Cowherd, Klatt said:
“He never really got a chance to tell his side of the story, and you know, Tennessee ran out basically a propaganda effort and got to tell the story without Nico being involved at all. It was not all about money; it really wasn’t. If it was, he wouldn’t have gone to UCLA, you know, which is the telltale sign. He wanted the offense to grow with him because… That offense that Josh Heupel runs is a very, is almost like a glorified high school offense.” (32:48)
Klatt went on to say that the offense was similar to the one run by Baylor under Art Briles, which was famously poor at developing quarterbacks. For Klatt, Iamaleava was looking further down the road to his eventual jump to the NFL, and the Vols didn’t seem like the program to take him there.
Colin Cowherd thinks Nico Iamaleava should’ve remained at Tennessee
Colin Cowherd, on the other hand, sees a completely different situation. For Cowherd, Iamaleava was undone by his parents’ greed. In particular, his father took the lead in the negotiations with the SEC school. Cowherd said:
“Nico Iamaleava, fascinating. I’ve said pageant mom has become quarterback dad. Like it’s the same thing. You’re squeezing so hard you’re hurting your kid. It’s just off-balance, it’s the parent getting too close.”
“He shouldn’t have left Tennessee. They have better players, you’re going to face more NFL bodies in that schedule compared to UCLA’s this year, whatever,” he added.
@joelklattshow Colin Cowherd wonders whether Nico Iamaleava will become the cautionary tale of NIL. Sponsored by @hilton @graduatehotels #cfb #cfp #collegefootball #nil #ucla ♬ original sound – The Joel Klatt Show
Both analysts seem to have different takes, but in the end, they agree that what should’ve been a priority on Nico Iamaleava’s calculus is the ability of the program to take him to the NFL. What’s evident is that UCLA doesn’t offer nearly the same chance to play for the national title as Tennessee did.
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