'That's Disgusting to Me': Kirk Herbstreit Slams Nico Iamaleava's Dad Over Alleged Demands to Josh Heupel

In one of the more bizarre sequences of the transfer portal era, the Tennessee Volunteers football program allowed its starting quarterback to walk after multiple threats from him and his camp.

Former five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava was once viewed as the signal-caller who could return the Vols to glory. While those of us on the outside saw him lead Tennessee to its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance last season, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes.

Iamaleava reportedly threatened to sit out the playoff game to renegotiate his contract, reportedly reached out to other programs to gauge their interest in him transferring there and apparently had his father telling head coach Josh Heupel to build a better team around him.

The latter is the latest revelation in the saga, as ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit revealed his true feelings on the Iamaleavas' handling of the situation.

"I think at the end of the day when they (Tennessee) got into spring ball it was still more of 'You haven't brought people in to make him and this offense better,'" Herbstreit said on the "Try That In a Small Town" podcast. "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 gonna be able to play well enough to be the first pick in the draft with the players that they had around him? That's disgusting to me if that's true."