Iamaleaving - Nico and Madden Transfer to UCLA

By Noah Massey | 28 April, 2025

As many high-profile California high school football players do, Nico Iamaleava chose to leave the Golden State behind and forge a path in the South. While many top recruits come from California, many venture to the South or the Midwest to the prestigious programs and tremendous fan bases that dot the region. As a consensus five-star recruit in the class of 2023, Iamaleava chose the University of Tennessee, where he immediately grabbed headlines for taking the reins of the quarterback position at the prestigious program. A week ago, he announced his return to Southern California to play for UCLA following a highly-publicized transfer saga fueled by controversy surrounding his NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) payments. 

Nico’s younger brother Madden, a quarterback from the 2025 class who enrolled early at Arkansas, told his coaching staff that he would be following Nico to UCLA as well. Before signing at Arkansas, Madden had a long saga with UCLA as a recruit where he committed, decommitted, recommitted, and finally decommitted on signing day in February. Madden’s decision to leave has also created buzz, with Arkansas threatening legal action to enforce a buyout clause in his NIL agreement.

Nico, why leave Tennessee?

After he redshirted the 2023 season behind current New England Patriots quarterback Joe Milton III, Nico Iamaleava won the starting role for Tennessee entering the 2024 season. In his first collegiate starting season, Iamaleava passed for 2,616 yards while completing 64% of his passes including 19 touchdowns and only five interceptions. With him at the helm, Tennessee reached the college football playoff for the first time where they were defeated by Ohio State.

Nico Iamaleava attempts a pass for the University of Tennessee.

While his statistical line doesn’t pop off the page, Iamaleava has been viewed as a tremendous prospect with high upside due to his athleticism, build, and arm strength that make him an ideal collegiate quarterback with professional potential. 

Iamaleava reportedly made $2.4 million in NIL payments during the 2024 season and was reportedly set to make a similar figure during the upcoming 2025 season. However, this figure initiated conflict led by Iamaleava against his program and its NIL collective that included public accusations and sitting out of spring practices. The star quarterback wound up looking for options elsewhere, though he wound up settling for less than he was originally guaranteed. 

This process set off a messy back-and-forth series of negotiations that allegedly took place between Iamaleava, his team of advisors – which included his father Nic, a former assistant director of player personnel at the University of Florida, and sports attorney Michael Huyghue, the former commissioner of the United Football League – and the Tennessee football program and it’s NIL collective, Spyre.

Delving into the actual conflict itself, it really turned into a game of ‘he-said she-said,’ with each side blaming the other, denying accusations, and leaving actual figures vague for the general public. The speculative nature of the fallout is similar to many other breakups that have occurred in the NIL era, with few people knowing what is really going on between the school, the player, the NIL collective, and the player’s advisors. The novelty of NIL contracts and the evident ability of players to exit the contracts wherever they want (more on that later) has created a chaotic environment where holdouts and threats of transferring emerge as constant concerns for coaches to deal with.

The spectacle surrounding Nico Iamaleava is a prime example of this phenomenon, one that eventually led to Iamaleava’s departure from the Tennessee program. While he presumably expected suitors that would get him closer to the idealized $4 million total, UCLA emerged as the best option, allegedly offering him something above $1.5 million but still considerably below his previous $2.4 million. 

When compared to other elite quarterbacks’ NIL earnings, $2.4 million was a pretty accurate figure for a high-upside guy who hasn’t yet proven himself to be elite like other top-end quarterbacks. Beyond this, Iamaleava had far less leverage than many other highly-paid quarterbacks, many of whom were able to create bidding wars for their services in the transfer portal during the winter among qb-needy teams.

Evidently, other programs either didn’t want to pay top dollar for a quarterback who might threaten to leave or were content enough with their quarterback room that it wasn’t worth it. His lack of suitors is likely rooted in the strange timing of his transfer, a tremendous amount of NIL money was dealt in the winter and teams are already settled and preparing for the season. While there have been many transfers this spring, Nico is by far the most renowned player to enter it. 

UCLA, on the other hand, snapped at the opportunity for a signal caller with a résumé like Iamaleava, despite his recent poor publicity record and the fact that his brother flipped away from the program just a few months beforehand. 

Before Iamaleava’s transfer announcement, quarterback Joey Aguilar was penciled in as the Bruins’ likely starter entering the 2025 season. The former Appalachian State star was rumored to have an NIL deal worth around $1 million at UCLA. While Aguilar has had a decorated collegiate career, he was considered to be on the lower end when compared to other quarterbacks in the mighty Big Ten conference, leaving him as the odd man out and needing a new home. 

Former UCLA quarterback Joey Aguilar attempts a pass during practice.

Following Iamaleava’s announcement, Aguilar transferred to Tennessee, essentially completing a quarterback swap between the two programs. With the loss of their starter and lacking experience in their quarterback room, Aguilar became a clear choice for the Volunteers considering the absence of other experienced quarterbacks in the portal during the spring transfer window. 

This “swap” is unprecedented in the history of college football, as trades were impractical and essentially impossible before the invention of NIL and the increased accessibility of the transfer portal.

However, the issue regarding the flipping of Madden Iamaleava away from UCLA became moot just a few days following Nico’s commitment when Madden committed to the Bruins. 

Madden, can you leave Arkansas?

Madden Iamaleava at a Arkansas Razorbacks spring practice.

How does NIL work? How does the NCAA regulate it? Are players in a constant state of “free agency,” where they can switch schools at will for more money? Or are they bound to contracts? 

Arkansas Edge, the NIL collective for the University of Arkansas, is currently testing the bounds of the new rules by asserting that players are bound to their contracts after signing. The collective is threatening legal action against Madden Iamaleava and wide receiver Dazmin James for breaking their contracts.

Iamaleava’s contract included a provision requiring him to pay the Arkansas Edge 50% of the remaining money if he left, meaning he owes $200,000 for transferring.

While the contract clearly attempted to restrict the transferring of the players who signed it, the attorney representing James asserted that the contract was not enforceable under Arkansas law, exposing major questions about the functionality of NIL contracts and their ability to bind those involved as contracts ought to.

The NCAA’s lack of infrastructure amid its confusion over whether the sport is amateur or professional has created an abundance of gray areas that can be exploited, which can have negative effects on all sides. Whether players are allegedly not receiving the NIL payments they were promised – which UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka alleged in the fall – or they are leveraging NIL payments in a free-for-all free agency as Iamaleava did, chaos has taken over in college football.

While UCLA was a benefactor from the chaos this time, who knows about situations yet to come? While they can take the acquisition of Nico and Madden as triumphs, they will still need to be wary of their own players abruptly departing for greener pastures.

Until the NCAA figures out how NIL works and how to best regulate it, college football will only become a messier business. While NIL is still a new concept that programs are just learning how to harness, it is still the NCAA’s duty to acknowledge that college football is essentially a professional sport and ought to be treated accordingly, with the proper protections for players and teams alike.