WESTWOOD, Calif. — Every once in a while, college football hands us a cautionary tale so perfectly scripted, you couldn’t write it better if you tried. Enter Nico Iamaleava and his father, “Big Nic.” Together, they made what is quickly becoming one of the worst decisions of the decade: bolting Tennessee for UCLA.
On paper, it was supposed to be about opportunity, NIL money, and building a brand in sunny Los Angeles. In reality, it’s about losing games in front of tarped-off bleachers, watching his career slide into irrelevance while Tennessee marches on without him.
Nico Iamaleava was supposed to be the poster child for quarterbacking prowess in the NIL and portal era. An adopted son of Tennessee football lore.
Well, he certainly became a poster child, for all the wrong reasons.
From Neyland to Nowhere
Nico had it all lined up. He was the chosen one in Knoxville, a five-star quarterback with the tools and the fanbase behind him. He had already tasted the playoff atmosphere, squaring off against Ohio State in the Horseshoe, and he knew what it meant to prepare for showdowns with Alabama and Georgia. That’s real football. That’s a career builder. But instead of cementing his legacy in the SEC, he packed his bags for the Rose Bowl—where the lights are dimmer, the fans fewer, and the opponents are, well, UNLV. And not beating them.
The Vols are prepping for another playoff push. Nico? He’s 0–2, already out of playoff contention unless you believe in fairy tales about perfect Big Ten seasons. Spoiler: they don’t happen in Westwood.
The Dad Factor
Of course, we can’t tell this story without tipping our cap to Big Nic. Every great football tragedy needs a misguided guiding hand, and he provided it. He believed his son was bigger than Tennessee, bigger than the SEC, and bigger than the program that had already embraced him as a future star. Overconfidence is one thing. Delusion is another. It’s like trading in a brand-new truck for a busted scooter because the scooter came with a shiny bell.
Big Nic valued short-term NIL promises over long-term development, over loyalty, and over the best chance at playoff glory. The Iamaleave family believed they held the upper hand in Knoxville and could force Josh Heupel into ponying up more millions for sub-par quarterback play.
In this new era of NIL deals and portal palooza, the Iamaleava family found out the hard truth. There’s always going to be a bubble ready to burst when delusional fantasy meets reality.
A tale so perfectly crafted, it’s almost fitting Iamaleava ended up just down the road from Disneyland at the end of this whole saga.
And now, Nico is left with empty seats, angry Vol fans who stick around only to hate-watch, and a dwindling NFL future. That’s not a career path. That’s a cautionary YouTube documentary, the likes of which LiAngelo Ball would scoff at.
After all, at least he has music to fall back on. Remember that one song everyone kept making TikTok edits to? Yea, that one.
Maybe a SoundCloud future is in the works for the Iamaleava camp.
The off-brand version of the Ball family looks poised to flame out of UCLA, something the Ball family overcame, yes, even LiAngelo.
From the College Football Playoff to getting cooked on the field and the interwebs by UNLV defenders in just 6 months.
Whoosh.
(Side note, we are big believers in Dan Mullen’s Vegas revival here at EasySportz).
Alas, let’s get to the facts on this entire soap opera situationship between Iamaleava and the Volunteer faithful.
Bruin Blunders
And don’t let UCLA off the hook. The Bruins somehow managed to downgrade at quarterback by losing Joey Aguilar and taking on the Iamaleava Experiment. As if that wasn’t enough, they doubled down by poaching Nico’s brother from Arkansas, which means they’re stuck with the family drama for years to come. You can almost hear the collective groan from the empty Rose Bowl bleachers, packed once a year for a bowl game and a couple video game photoshoots: “We tarped off half the stadium for this?”
The Bruins don’t even have the infrastructure to maximize Nico’s talent. It’s not Knoxville. It’s not the SEC. It’s Hollywood, where the lights might be brighter but the football certainly isn’t.
Pair a mid-pack PAC 12 roster with a Big Ten schedule that hasn’t even begun and you have disaster waiting in the wings.
Remember, UCLA’s head coach, DeShaun Foster, barely made it through his first big time press conference at media days, just one year ago.
We’ve all gotten nervous on the big stage a time or two, but we also lacked the resources of a Power 4 program to provide speech writers, public speaking coaches and all of that Jazz, right?
Poor Foster. Needless to say, the Bruins may have fared worse on the field so far than they did in this presser…
Whoosh…
The Bruins have yet to recover.
From Citrus Bowl to Sour Grapes
Think back just a year ago: Tennessee capped off its season with a Citrus Bowl win over Iowa, and Nico looked destined to be the guy to take them even further. Now, he’s gone from beloved to laughed at, from future SEC star to late-night punchline. The same Vols fans who were ready to anoint him as their savior now tune in on the CBS Sports App at midnight just to see how bad it gets. That’s a fall from grace even Shakespeare would’ve thought to be a bit much when writing a Midsummer Night’s Dream off an acid trip.
Southern Charm, Hollywood Fade
The Iamaleava camp thought Hollywood was where the lights shine brightest. But here’s a little Southern wisdom for Nico: sometimes those lights ain’t brighter, they’re just more expensive. The Rose Bowl is quiet these days, while Neyland Stadium is shaking every Saturday. One’s a cathedral of college football. The other’s a museum of what once was, outside that special New Year’s game the Bruins haven’t sniffed since the 1998.
Don’t want to take our word for it? Just ask former Tennessee beat writer, turned national college football writer and FWAA president, David Ubben.
What a brilliant piece of sports journalism from one of the best in the business, here.
Back to the basics, now.
Tennessee has rebuilt its program twice over since then and yet, the Vols still have more big-game appearances (and wins).
Well, they’ll always have that comeback over A&M a few years ago, I suppose.
The Inevitable Ending
So where does this go? Tennessee will probably find its stride and make another playoff run, with another quarterback who actually fits the program. Nico, meanwhile, is staring down a future at the FCS level or a Group of Five program next fall. The NFL dreams? Fading faster than the Rose Bowl’s attendance numbers, damn near two hours away from the Bruins’ actual campus.
UCLA claiming the Rose Bowl is a further fantasy than Georgia State laying claim to the now demolished Georgia Dome in the opening years of its program.
Yes, really.
Name me an iconic game at the Rose Bowl involving the Bruins, without bringing up the A&M Sumlin Sorcerer stick game.
Ah, right, you can’t.
This is the definition of “f around and find out,” personified.
Nico and his dad thought they were playing chess while Rocky Top was playing orange and white checkers. Turns out Nico and his dad were just playing Connect Four, and even then, they forgot how to block.
Good luck to you, Nico. Hollywood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And when you’re losing to UNLV in another half-emtpy and tarped off stadium, the SEC and those roaring Tennessee crowds start looking a whole lot better. Too bad you shut that door yourself.
In all seriousness, it can’t get much worse from here, right?
Hopefully a rebound is in store for Nico and the Bruins against New Mexico this week. Surely, the lessons have been learned by now, right?
One can only hope.
If Tennessee knocks off Kirby Smart and Georgia Saturday, the Nico noise and collective taunting is only going to grow.
There’s an old saying around SEC Country.
Bless. Your. Heart.
Morgan Wallen may not have enough whiskey glasses for the Bruins fanbase and this is just Week 3.
Now go win the Big Ten and prove us all wrong, Nico. We’d love to see a UCLA / Tennessee first round matchup in the College Football Playoff and if there’s one thing we can get TV execs to agree on, it’s just that.
Let this be a lesson to future generations of recruits and college athletes. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Loyalty and hard work often win out over ego. But for now, this trade screams much less of a Hollywood ending. We’re approaching Texans-Browns trade levels of hindsight.
Okay, that’s our two cents and then some.
Point made.
College Football Week 3, here goes nothing, right?
