On April 11, Josh Heupel realized his worst nightmares had come true. After months of back and forth, already indicative of the souring relationship between the coach and Nico Iamaleava, the latter skipped practice a day ahead of the Tennessee Volunteers’ spring game and stopped responding altogether. “As the day went on, it started to become obvious. He was gone and wasn’t coming back,” a team source later stated. The issue was simple.

Early reports revealed that the quarterback was not exactly happy with his NIL deal. Set to make around $2.5 million with the Vols, Iamaleava had reportedly pushed for $4 million, much like Duke’s Darian Mensah and Miami’s Carson Beck, before the winter transfer portal closed. The university had declined on that occasion. So Iamaleava, backed by his dad, did what any player would do. With the spring transfer portal on the horizon, he left. Less than just two weeks later, he was already a Bruins. But what’s strange was Nic Iamaleava’s stance throughout the whole ordeal.

Every time journalists would blame the NIL fallout, the dad would hit back. Sometimes, he’d call out On3‘s Pete Nakos, and sometimes he’d tell Front Office Sports how “the narrative was bulls—“. What also didn’t sit right was how the former Vols quarterback was reportedly making just around $1.5 million with his new team. While many pointed out that the QB’s stubbornness only harmed him and that “UCLA is paying big bucks for a quarterback who’s now proven to be at least a bit problematic”, looks like Nic was not lying after all.

On July 13, Herbstreit joined the Try That In a Small Town Podcast. He was asked about sharing his thoughts on whether Iamaleava’s decision to hit the transfer button was correct or not. To this, the ESPN analyst shared, “That fan base is going to be in [Joey Aguilar’s] corner after Nico kind of ‘left’ them the way he did. I don’t know the true story. I’ve heard different stories. Some people thought it was about money. I’ve heard from close sources that it was more about Nico’s dad going to Josh back in December before they played Ohio State, like, ‘Hey, listen, you gotta get better at offensive line and better at receiver, you gotta get better around him if you want us to stick around’, which blows my mind that a college quarterback’s dad would do that to a head coach.”

As Herbstreit further shared, “And I think at the end of the day, when they got into spring ball, it was still more of: ‘You (Tennessee) haven’t brought people in to make [Nico] and this offense better’. Again, I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what I was hearing. So I don’t think it was necessarily about the money. I think it was more about, ‘Is Nico going to be able to play well enough to eventually be a first-round pick in the draft with the players that they had around him?’ That’s disgusting to me if that’s true.” 

“I wouldn’t expect Drake Maye to go to Mike Vrabel or Drake Maye’s dad to go to Mike Vrabel in the NFL and say, ‘Hey, listen. You guys are doing a shi–y job’…But think about that. In the NFL, you wouldn’t do that. And a college parent is doing that. If that’s true, it’s mindboggling that’s where we are right now, that a Josh Heupel has to actually listen to a parent and feel threatened that his starting freshman quarterback might leave because he hasn’t done what the dad asked. Blows my mind,” Herbstreit concluded.

But truth be told, we did see Heupel’s boys struggling to protect Iamaleava last season. Do you remember the Volunteers’ 19-14 loss to Arkansas? It was Iamaleava’s first loss as a starter, after boasting a flawless 5-0 entering the night, a streak that began with the Citrus Bowl. And the outcome? On one hand, the quarterback seemed almost timid, a shadow of the self he had against Oklahoma two weeks prior, despite the team holding up at times. He ultimately ran out of bounds on the last play, after completing 17 of 29 passes for 158 yards and zero touchdowns during the game.

However, the offensive line wasn’t doing him any favors either. The 20-year-old was sacked four times, and Arkansas pressured him on almost every pass he threw. The team’s offensive line was beaten routinely by the Arkansas pass rushers.

Now, whether Nic Iamaleava was right in asking the head coach to fix the loopholes, you decide.