Rece Davis is all about player empowerment, but that argument seems to fade away when it comes to Nico Iamaleava.
The now-former Tennessee quarterback is officially headed to UCLA, as first reported by Colin Cowherd. While those like Kirk Herbstreit didn’t want to question the sophomore quarterback’s character, the College GameDay star did use the moment to lament the broader media trend of not holding players accountable. His colleague in Davis did just that, while also taking a swipe at Iamaleava and his representation for being “extraordinarily ungrateful.”
“There are a lot of different ways to look at this, and the first way that I look at it is this — if you’ve listened to this podcast or heard me on GameDay for years, you know that I’m all for players getting paid,” Davis said on the College GameDay Podcast. “I also believe that the players have not gotten their due for years. We’re going to see some of this resolved, if and when — and, assumingly, it’ll be when — the House settlement gets approved.”
But to Davis, there’s still a right way to do business. And in his view, Iamaleava and his representatives handled the situation as “ham-handedly” and as “poorly” as possible. He also claimed that Nico and his team misjudged their leverage over the Volunteers, nor did they have a landing spot.
“Which, you need to have a landing spot before you go in and start demanding extra money,” Davis says. “And the other thing is that they came off as extraordinarily ungrateful in all of this, which is also a damage to your reputation. Nico Iamaleava, for those of you who might not know, was first approached when he was still in high school, and Tennessee came with an NIL deal.”
All within the rules, of course.
“And then, subsequently, in court, the Tennessee state attorney, I believe, or attorney general, I think I have that right, fought on his behalf to make sure the NCAA couldn’t say that he was ineligible to play for Tennessee,” Davis continued. “And he collected some money up front. He collected some money in the year that he did not play, and then had moments last season, but he didn’t have a great season by any stretch of the imagination, although he was certainly good, and he had some big moments.
“He was a guy who was wildly talented, still growing, and you felt as if [there was] unlimited potential if he stayed on course. Yet, it has become apparent that there were other factors at play, and Nico either was not interested or did not quite have the internal strength to stand up to his circle and say, ‘This is not the way we’re going to do business.'”
As a result, he skipped a practice. And his career at Tennessee was essentially over.
At the time of the podcast recording, news of Iamaleava’s transfer to Deshaun Foster’s UCLA program hadn’t broken yet. But Davis made it clear he believed the market for the quarterback would be limited. And he was right.
“He’ll play,” Davis said. “He’s talented enough to play great, and I’m sure that he can come back from this. There’s no doubt about it. But it is certainly a significant bump in the road.”
And given how poorly he handled the situation at Tennessee, this could either be the wake-up call Nico needs or a cautionary tale for other players looking to overplay their leverage