Paul Finebaum reacts to Nico Iamaleava holdout, contract dispute with Tennessee

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum weighed in on the Nico Iamaleava situation at Tennessee. The QB is currently absent from spring practice amid renegotiations of his NIL deal.

On3’s Pete Nakos reported the wild saga Thursday night as his representatives look for a bigger deal. Heck, the NCAA transfer portal this spring isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

This is something that has been brewing in college football since NIL became a thing across college athletics. So, Finebaum isn’t surprised by Iamaleava’s current situation.

“At the beginning of my career, a school could go on probation for buying a player a McDonald’s hamburger,” Finebaum said on SportsCenter. “We now have the first college football holdout. Not a big deal in the NFL … but this young man literally is holding out for more money, and he’s already being paid about two and a half million dollars. So we are at an inflection point in this sport that we have never been before. We should have seen it coming. 

“It is legal now, where players are about to make even more with the upcoming house settlement, but we are now five hours and 15 minutes away from the Tennessee spring game and the star quarterback who led them to the playoffs last year, we don’t know if he’s on campus, we don’t know if he’s left, we don’t know if he’ll be back. And yesterday, on our show, a lot of Tennessee fans called in and said they don’t want him back. They are fed up with this moment in time.”

As a sophomore last season, Nico Iamaleava threw for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns in his first year as Tennessee’s starting quarterback. He previously sat behind Joe Milton, and NIL was a central part of the recruiting process. As The Athletic reported at the time, Iamaleava received a lucrative NIL deal when he arrived on Rocky Top.

That agreement was a seminal moment in the NIL era, and something the NCAA was getting ready to investigate before Tennessee fought back. That led to a preliminary injunction and, ultimately, the NCAA allowing NIL discussions to take place during the recruiting process.

As for the timing and reason for the apparent holdout, ESPN’s Chris Low cited a few reasons during an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show. Notably, the spring transfer portal window opens next week, and NIL dollars continue to fly.

Low evaluated Iamaleava’s situation at Tennessee, pointing out coach Josh Heupel could understandably prefer to have his quarterback back in 2025. But given the current situation of the portal window, coupled with thoughts about the roster from Iamaleava’s team, it led to the current situation.