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Today in college football news, itâs time to refresh on âAndor,â the Star Wars product for grownups, before season 2 drops next week.
Fallout: One way or the other, a consequential athlete
Will this past weekendâs holdout saga of now-former Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava end up changing everything about college sports? I dunno. Maybe! I get why it felt like a massive turning point. Weâll get to that stuff.
First, I honestly find the story itself more fascinating than its potential ramifications. Mainly, never say Iamaleava (and his oft-involved father) isnât a trailblazer:
- 2022: Not long into the NIL era, the five-star recruit signed an $8 million deal covering his anticipated Tennessee career. Unprecedented, and at the time, everyone marveled at paying that much money via a contract that couldnât actually be binding. âThereâs an element of trust there,â the lawyer who wrote the contract told The Athletic back then.
- 2024: The state of Tennessee (along with Virginia) sued the NCAA after news broke that the governing-ish body was investigating Iamaleavaâs journey toward the Vols. The states won. The then-19-year-old couldâve retired right then as one of the most important college athletes ever.
- 2025: Months before UTâs recent holdout situation, Georgia QB Carson Beck landed a one-year Miami deal reportedly approaching $4 million, perhaps nearly doubling Iamaleavaâs annual average. Thatâs despite Beck being injured and producing a 145.34 passer rating as a senior, matching Iamaleavaâs as a redshirt freshman. I donât know Iamaleavaâs advisers, but I keep imagining those two numbers mightâve felt discordant. Regardless, after 72 hours of college sportsâ highest-profile holdout attempt ever, the former NIL pioneer was gone.
One guy did all that? While also appearing in the College Football Playoff? Which untested NIL boundary will he next probe like a âJurassic Parkâ raptor? Either way, now we wait to see how this weekend changes the world. Everything changes the world in some way, after all.
Maybe this captivating moment will end up being the decisive showdown that breaks college sportsâ ultimate stalemate. Coming right after spring ball, the Iamaleava familyâs move was so annoyingly timed, it found little support even among the most athlete-first factions of this relatively athlete-friendly era. Right now, it feels like Tennessee coach Josh Heupelâs refusal to play the holdout game swung the balance of power back toward schools.
Most importantly â because this is once again the main question, as always â will this be what finally pushes various groups of adults to stop kicking the can away from collective bargaining?
Still, because college sports will always strive toward the status quo, it might just have been a thrilling drama that clarified what you canât do in the NIL era. Itâs natural to wonder whether each new NIL thing is a trendsetter, a landmark, a conclusion. Maybe so, and there are arguably reasons it should be. But this mightâve just been a standalone example of one playerâs camp having way too much dip on its chip.
What did we learn from this episode? Well, now we know that an average-performing QB (in games against teams with winning records, Iamaleavaâs passer rating ranked 85th in FBS, 12th among qualifying freshmen) canât pull off a poorly communicated holdout in mid-April, when he has little leverage because just about any other team that could conceivably pay $4 million is a team that already has a QB, as recent portal history demonstrates.
Kinda feel like we already knew all that, right? Especially since Tennessee knew it could potentially pass the sticks to QB Jake Merklinger, a former four-star whoâs spent a redshirt year in Heupelâs offense?
Itâs possible Iamaleavaâs ostentatious counselors gave fellow athletes a perfect example of how not to negotiate â while rich guys in polo shirts just keep yearning to give unprecedented deals to five-star QBs.
Quick Snaps
đŚ College football joins the Current Pro Athlete As Assistant General Manager thing. All-Pro Raiders DE Maxx Crosby is now Eastern Michiganâs Steph Curry.
đ Former LSU receiver Kyren Lacy was found dead late Saturday night, Texas police said. He was 24.
đ° Courted by Fox, âCollege GameDayâ host Rece Davis âhas agreed to a new seven-year deal for tens of millions of dollarsâ at ESPN.
đ The portal re-opens tomorrow, and a new name has entered: Cal RB Jaydn Ott, star of the #Calgorithm movement.
đ¸ Spring ball:
âĄď¸Â Kent State fired head coach Kenni Burns, finding he âviolated university policies concerning purchasing card expenses,â among other unspecified ethics allegations. He has a history of financial troubles.
đ§đťââď¸ Christina Day, wife of Ryan Day, says the Ohio State coach has actually never dyed his beard. That emoji looks like him, though.
đ Still feels like a college sports link to me: Grace Raynor interviewed the guy who went viral for predicting the greatness of a sixth-grade Paige Bueckers, the WNBA Draftâs No. 1 pick last night.
â° The NFL Draft is next week. If last yearâs draft got a re-do, would LSUâs Jayden Daniels go No. 1?
The Manager: Jordon Brand
In the 1880s, Alice Sumner Camp was college footballâs most important assistant coach. The wife of Yale coach Walter Camp, she ran practices, hosted meetings and drew praise from players for her detailed feedback. Thatâs not exactly a historical comp for todayâs news, but Iâve been shoehorning it into lots of conversations lately.
At Belichickâs North Carolina, the 72-year-old coachâs girlfriend â a 24-year-old named Jordon Hudson, whoâs copied on some of Belichickâs UNC emails at his request â has taken an active role in shaping the programâs messaging around the head coach, as revealed in emails obtained by The Athletic. For instance, before UNC announced Belichick was hiring his 38-year-old son, Steve, as defensive coordinator:
âHudson said the school shouldnât use images of Steve and Bill Belichick together to prevent âvisual promptsâ that could fuel accusations of nepotism. She also suggested that the Tar Heels avoid referring to Steve as âBillâs sonâ and instead highlight his own accomplishments.â
Makes sense, sure, but know what might make it even harder for Steve to beat the nepo allegations? Being defended by his dadâs girlfriend. Hudson also appears to have roles at various companies that manage Belichickâs branding, merch, podcasting and so forth, all in addition to recent viral footage of her interacting with staffers during practice. More in the story by Matt Baker here.