Tennessee faced a tragic season end, falling to a 42-17 trap to a compact Ohio State Buckeyes in their first-round game of the playoffs. But it’s not the only chaos they are facing right now. Their season came to an end, but more to their dismay, they have their key quarterback, Nico Iamaleava’s career, on the line as the latest NIL intel complicated his eligibility as per the NCAA rules. Thankfully, they had Iamaleava in the last game as the result of a timely lawsuit against the NCAA that led to a temporary injunction on the highly debatable NIL restrictions. The 20-year-old still couldn’t save his team from a playoff heartbreak, but that’s another story. It, anyway, didn’t validate the NCAA’s unjust ruling over the rousing QB.

There has been a reason behind it. Let’s go back to an old reported NCAA NIL violation story. It all started with Iamaleava penning a deal with Spyre Sports, a Tennessee-affiliated NIL collective, that has agreed to pay him up to a whopping $8 million. NCAA found something fishy in the relationship between Tennessee, Nico Iamaleava, and Spyre Sports. But there was no legit proof of any wrongdoing.

Readdressing the faulty judgment, Caleb Calhoun noted, ”The NCAA decided to go after Tennessee and Florida State. They expected, according to this report, that Tennessee was going to cooperate easily because they had just gotten off of the previous  Scandal for that Jeremy Puit oversaw. So, they expected that a wounded Tennessee was going to cooperate, and according to this report, they tried, and their initial plan to flex their muscles was to rule Iamaleava ineligible and force Tennessee to disassociate itself with Spyre Sports.’‘

NIL has been making the college football periphery a constant warfare lately. It is, on the one hand, serving the young players the opportunity to grow financially. On the other, it makes the transfer norm and the other stratagem related to it a heck of a trick. There have been plenty of rumors about how much the Vols paid in order to land Iamaleava as a highly touted recruit. All thanks to the NCAA’s groundless doubt over Spyre Sports’ intention with him. They initially investigated who paid for a private jet the UT QB took. But again, so far, nothing made sense, as nothing is backed by any solid evidence.

But at the start of the year, it looked really like a concern regarding whether or not Iamaleava could suit for the Vols this season as the NCAA strictly asked the school to disassociate with the QB and the alleged company. The federal court’s temporal ban on the restriction made a wonder for the California native, but the past horror continues to haunt.

”It’s very clear that they had the NCAA had no qualms about putting a young freshman putting his career on hold and jeopardizing his career to flex their own muscles against a school.” Calhoun dished a no-nonsense fact on the face.

Moving ahead, safeguarding Nico Iamaleava in the face of NCAA mistreatment proved worth the effort for the Vols in their seismic season.

Nico Iamaleava draws controversial post-playoff woes

From serving as a backup guy behind Joe Milton last season to leading the team to a high-yielding playoff QB, Nico Iamaleava paved his way. He has put his all on the line in a nail-biter against Ohio State this week. Unfortunately, their effort came up short in front of the Ryan Day squad, but the 6-foot-6, 215-pound signal caller completed 14-of-31 passing attempts for 104 yards in the game.

Nico Iamaleava scored a 2-yard rushing TD after a 36-yard field goal by Max Gilbert, taking the team to a momentary glimmer in the scoreboard in the third quarter. But right after that, he threw himself out in a controversy.

With a touchdown score just 20 seconds ahead of the second half, the quarterback celebrated, imitating a signature LeBron James ‘Silencer’ celebration.

While one part of the internet went mad at him for flexing as the team didn’t clinch the win, the confidence, the aura, and the performance made him stand out no matter what.

”In the first half, I thought we did a great job of that, and in the second half, I thought we could have played at a significantly higher level than we did.” Iamaleava reflected in a post-game interview. He is hopeful that the team will come back with a greater season in 2025.