The Nico Iamaleava saga has become one of the biggest stories in all of football. It’s widely regarded as a disaster for the player.
One former college coach, who had a disastrous season in the NFL, has chimed in on the subject.
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“Here’s the reality,” former Jaguars coach Urban Meyer said on The Triple Option Podcast (via the Knoxville News Sentinel), “Tennessee is screwed.”
After Iamaleava skipped a practice, the Volunteers stridently moved on. And now they don’t have a quarterback.
“They are at nada, zero,” Meyer said.
Obviously, they’ll find someone to supplement redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger and freshman George MacIntyre. But it won’t be easy to get a new guy up to speed in time for the season that’s coming.
“Everybody’s saying, ‘Nice job Tennessee, making a stand,’” Meyer said. “I’ve got a little comment on that. Tennessee plays Florida usually every year in October. Can you imagine that game’s going the other way and [coach] Josh Heupel grabs the microphone and stands on the 50-yard line in Neyland Stadium and says, ‘It’s OK, I made a stand way back when.'”
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Yes, Tennessee has won the P.R. battle — largely because Iamaleava’s camp hasn’t bothered to implement any real P.R. strategy at all. Still, Tennessee could lose the football war.
Iamaleava could, too. He’s officially in the transfer portal, and he’ll undoubtedly find a team for 2025.
Separately, however, Iamaleava and Tennessee could do a lot worse apart than they could have one together. Especially since, last year, they did enough to get to the college football playoff.
