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Bruins' Nico Iamaleava Still Drawing Reactions From Tennessee

Originally posted on UCLA Bruins on SI
By Andrew Parsaud | Last updated Aug 7, 2025 12:30 PM ET

Fans from around college football have expressed their opinions on the Tennessee Volunteers-Nico Iamaleava situation over the last few months. Many reports were Iamaleava became frustrated after not being able to renegotiate a new NIL deal with the program, though he has since refuted the reports.

The heavily-recruited quarterback signed an $8 million deal worth over three seasons with Tennessee.

Iamaleava threw for 2,616 yards, 19 touchdowns and five interceptions in 2024, his first time starting a full season in college. He led the Volunteers to their first appearance in the College Football Playoff. Still, despite that, Tennessee decided to move on, leading Iamaleava to transfer to the UCLA Bruins.

It's been a few months since the entire ordeal went down, but Tennessee fans aren't exactly fond over Iamaleava's decision to transfer. In a recent article by John Adams of the Knoxville News Sentinel, he allowed readers to voice their thoughts on Iamaleava and Tennessee football in general.

Tennessee fans didn't hold back on Iamaleava, UCLA football

Mike, one of the readers that wrote in for this story, had this to say regarding Tennessee's former quarterback:

"I expect that UCLA officials are getting giddy as they anticipate the impact an overrated quarterback like Nico Iamaleava can have on attendance at the Bruins' games this fall. Last season UCLA averaged 43,380 empty seats per game for their home games. Who knows with Nico there, maybe UCLA may be able to bring that number all the way down to less than 40,000 empty seats per game? (The Rose Bowl seats 92,542. UCLA's average home attendance last year was 49,162.)"

Adams then responded by saying, "If Arch Manning transferred to UCLA, the impact would be minimal on Bruins football. UCLA might attract more television viewers per capita in Knoxville than Los Angeles, and most of them will be pulling for Iamaleava to fail. He managed to transfer to a worse program for less money. That’s quite an accomplishment."

It's fair to say that Volunteers fans, and journalists it appears, aren't exactly buying into the Iamaleava/UCLA hype. UCLA and Tennessee aren't scheduled to meet this year, but imagine the fireworks a matchup like that could create?

The UCLA transfer is looking to focus on his game and lead them to some major wins, the same way he did last year at Tennessee. It'll be interesting to see how Iamaleava responds to the hate.

This article first appeared on UCLA Bruins on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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