Former Vols star Da'Rick Rogers calls out Nico Iamaleava amid negotiation drama

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava didn’t report to practice on Friday amid NIL negotiations for the upcoming season. While some fans understand Iamaleava’s desire to make more money next season, others aren’t happy with the QB. On Friday, former Tennessee star wide receiver Da’Rick Rogers weighed in on the controversy surrounding Iamaleava.

“The season he had doesn’t demand a renegotiation,” Rogers wrote on X in a thread discussing Iamaleava’s NIL negotiations. “It was a barely average season at best. Defense really held it down but him running out of bounds against Arkansas on the last play of the game kills that $4M renegotiation nonsense.”

As a redshirt freshman last season, Iamaleava was Tennessee’s full-time starter. He finished the year with 2,616 passing yards and 19 touchdowns while throwing five interceptions. He also recorded 358 yards and three scores in the ground game.

Iamaleava led the Volunteers to their College Football Playoff appearance in program history. It was also the first year CFP expanded to include 12 teams. Tennessee ultimately lost to eventual national championship Ohio State in the first round of the CFP.

Da’Rick Rogers played at Tennessee from 2010-11 — far before players could negotiate their contracts for upcoming seasons. In the 2011 campaign, Rogers led the SEC in receptions and receiving yards. For his efforts, he was named an All-SEC Second-Team selection.

He isn’t the first player from the pre-NIL era to criticize Iamaleava for renegotiating his NIL contract with Tennessee. Dallas Cowboys star Micah Parsons, who played at Penn State from 2018-20, called on college football programs to “hold players accountable to the contracts they sign.”

According to On3’s Pete Nakos, Iamaleava’s current contract is somewhere between $2.2 to $2.5 million. During an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show on Friday afternoon, ESPN’s Chris Low provided further details on the ongoing negotiations between the two sides.

“From the best I can tell, the quarterbacks coach and OC Joey Halzle met at his house and they had dinner. Nico was there. After that, there was not really any contact with him from anybody that I’ve talked to,” Low said.

“And then he didn’t show up for practice this morning. Tennessee practices in the morning. It was a surprise to his coaches, to his teammates, nobody heard he wasn’t coming. He just didn’t show up. And I don’t know that they’ve talked to him (since), unless something’s happened in the last hour or so.”

Tennessee’s annual spring game is tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET. As of this report, it’s unclear whether Nico Iamaleava will be in attendance.