{"id":225663,"date":"2025-07-21T22:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T22:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/225663\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T22:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T22:54:11","slug":"kirk-herbstreit-reveals-what-iamaleava-camp-allegedly-told-josh-heupel-tennessee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/225663\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk Herbstreit Reveals What Iamaleava Camp Allegedly Told Josh Heupel, Tennessee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Josh<\/a>Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava and HC Josh Heupel. Photo By Andrew Ferguson\/Tennessee Athletics.<\/p>\n

ESPN College GameDay host and broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit spoke about his thoughts on the Nico Iamaleava transfer situation that occurred in the spring on the podcast \u201cTry That in a Small Town<\/a>\u201d last week.<\/p>\n

While Iamaleava is long gone from Tennessee after transferring to UCLA in the spring window, the story still holds magnitude in the NIL and transfer portal landscape in college football today.<\/p>\n

Herbstreit\u2019s comments didn\u2019t present anything concrete, which he admits by saying that he doesn\u2019t know the true story around the saga. He instead just relayed some of the shocking things he had heard over the summer from the fallout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know the true story,\u201d Herbstreit said on the podcast<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve heard different stories. Some people thought it was about money. I\u2019ve heard from close sources that it was more about Nico\u2019s dad going to Josh (Heupel), back in December before they played Ohio State, like, \u2018Hey, listen, you\u2019ve got to get better at offensive line, better at receiver, you\u2019ve got to get better around him if you want us to stick around.\u2019 Which blows my mind that a college quarterback\u2019s dad would do that to a head coach. And I think at the end of the day, when they got into spring ball, it was still more of, you haven\u2019t brought people in to make him and this offense better. Again, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true, but that\u2019s what I was hearing. So I don\u2019t think it was necessarily about the money. I think it was more about, is Nico going to be able to play well enough to eventually be a first pick in the draft with the players that they had around him. That\u2019s disgusting to me, if that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herbstreit went on to say that he couldn\u2019t imagine (New England Patriots quarterback) Drake Maye\u2019s father questioning Mike Vrabel on personnel moves. And while Herbstreit says that he does wish Iamaleava the best of luck with UCLA after moving closer to home, he believes that his situation at Tennessee \u201cspeaks volumes about the kind of times that we\u2019re in right now in this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nico Iamaleava took over the Vols\u2019 starting quarterback position in 2024, going 10-2 in the regular season and leading Tennessee to its first College Football Playoffs appearance before getting blown out by Ohio State in Columbus in the first round. He threw 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns to just five interceptions on 63.8% passing as the starter for the Vols. But despite going through training camp with Tennessee this past spring, an implosion happened before the Vols\u2019 Orange & White spring game. Iamaleava was reportedly a no-show in the final Friday workout before the game, leading to Iamaleava entering the transfer portal. Heupel bluntly addressed the situation after the game, saying that no one person was bigger than the Power T as a whole. While many expected Iamaleava to help lead the Vols to another playoff appearance in 2025, Tennessee held its ground and put its foot down amidst the drama.<\/p>\n

More From RTI:\u00a0ESPN SP+ Ranks Josh Heupel As Top Five Coach In College Football<\/a><\/p>\n

Herbstreit\u2019s comments weren\u2019t all about the Iamaleava saga, though. He was also asked about Joey Aguilar\u2019s spot with the Volunteers and what his role could be. Aguilar spent the last two seasons as the starter with App State before transferring to UCLA in the offseason. He spent the spring with the Bruins, but eventually transferred out after Iamaleava\u2019s arrival and wound up with Tennessee. It sort of ended up being a \u201ctrade\u201d in the sport, even though Aguilar didn\u2019t play any actual seasons with the Bruins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to wait and see,\u201d Herbstreit said of Aguilar<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s going into a great system. I mean, Josh Heupel puts the quarterback in a spot to be successful with the system that they run. So I wouldn\u2019t be shocked to see him do well. And also, he\u2019s going in with, I don\u2019t want to say nothing to lose, but the expectations are always high at Tennessee, but they\u2019re going to be in his corner. That fanbase is going to be in his corner after Nico kind of left them, the way he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out Kirk Herbstreit\u2019s full comments from the \u201cTry That In A Small Town\u201d podcast below:<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava and HC Josh Heupel. Photo By Andrew Ferguson\/Tennessee Athletics. ESPN College GameDay host and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,1376,10667,1439,1209,6364],"class_list":{"0":"post-225663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-josh-heupel","10":"tag-kirk-herbstreit","11":"tag-nico-iamaleava","12":"tag-tennessee-football","13":"tag-tennessee-vols"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114893689010514984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}