Andy & Ari On3 - The latest on Nico Iamaleava and Tennessee on a WILD Friday

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

We’re excited to announce we’ll be hosting Andy & Ari On3 LIVE from the Draft in Green Bay on Thursday, April 24 and Friday, April 25! We’ll be set up right outside the famous Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field at the Culver’s Great Wisconsin Tailgate. Born in Wisconsin, Culver’s is the home of the legendary ButterBurger, Fresh Frozen Custard and Wisconsin Cheese Curds—there’s no better representation of America’s Dairyland than that. We’ll have some very special guests throughout the Draft that you won’t want to miss, so stay tuned for more details and get ready for a weekend of fun, made fresh with our friends at Culver’s: https://go.culvers.com/culvers/sAkHC Quarterback Nico Iamaleava skipped Tennessee’s penultimate spring practice on Friday morning, and it appears the relationship between Iamaleava and the team has taken a turn. Andy and Ari review the timeline and discuss what might happen next. Is Nico done at Tennessee? Is there any hope of salvaging the relationship at this point? Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Want to partner with the show? E-mail [e-mail]

Welcome to Andy and Ariane 3 emergency edition. You hear the sirens. You know what that means. It's Friday afternoon. I'm going to timestamp this sucker Ari. It is 420 p.m. Eastern time Friday afternoon. We are Andy and Ariane 3 presented by Culver's. Please like subscribe to the on three sports YouTube channel on three sports where you learn things like Nico Yamai, I am Ali Ava is negotiating with Tennessee where you learn things like

if you're a member of ball quest, our Tennessee site that Nico email. I was not at practice on Friday morning. That's where that broke first from the great Austin price. So Ari, since we last talked, Nico has skipped practice. As far as we know at this point, we've not heard of any communication between him and Tennessee. It is increasingly beginning to look like that relationship is not salvageable. Yes, a lot to unpack here again. And I want to the yes, a lot to unpack here again and I want to start by

saying that Tennessee and the Niko I uh I am Ali Ava camp have no respect for the masters because that's happening right now. Uh but this is uh the most important thing in our sport and Andy, this felt salvageable before this morning. It felt as simple as will they meet his price or will he go to

practice and goes to the spring game tomorrow? And if they're in the midst of a negotiation, then okay, fine. It's very something done before the portal opens. It feels very different now. No. Yeah, it feels very something done before the portal opens. It feels very different now, no, yeah It feels very different now and now I am Doubting that he's gonna be Tennessee's quarterback next year Like I wasn't at that point this morning during our show and now I am am I wrong for that?

No, I don't think you're wrong at all. I think it's a logical assumption. I don't know that there's any coming back from that. And also, it's interesting to me because if you are looking at other schools, this has gotta hurt your leverage because it takes Tennessee as a bidder out of the mix. Yep. So, and maybe Tennessee was never gonna be a bidder. Maybe Tennessee was gonna take a hard line and say,

we have a deal with you, you're being paid fairly, we don't think we need to do anything else. Maybe that was it. Chris Lowe from ESPN put up a tweet earlier today and said that before the winter portal, E.M. Ali Alves reps wanted to see his deal up to the $4 million a year range, and it was about 2.4 million a year range. And it was about $2.4 million

for the 2020-25 season according to his original contract. And Tennessee balked at that number. And according to Chris Lowe, Tennessee officials said, quote, they weren't going to blink. So listen, that is, they're right. You wrote a column about how this is Niko's right to do this. But it's a two way street. If Tennessee wants to hold firm and say, look, we had a deal. We think it's a good deal. There's no sense in changing that stance. If you feel like the number you have is fair and adequate and you're okay with losing him, then that's where it is. It seems like they're okay with that.

So there's probably an art of the deal joke in here somewhere. I'll let you make that later on in the show. No, you're the one who makes those. I get complaints. Yeah, yeah, I'm the one who makes those. But the thing here is that this morning we were bogged down with whether or not people were trusting the report. Okay, so now that we can all get to a place where the report obviously was was

happening and we're at a more dire situation. I think that you're not going to believe this Ari, but after he skipped practice, a lot of Tennessee fans who were yelling at us about all of that stuff suddenly think he's a terrible quarterback and they can do better. Yeah. And I thought it'd be better about being less reactionary. But here's the thing. There's a business deal happening here. Okay. And it is Nico's camp and his decision how they want to conduct their business. But there are good businessmen and there are bad businessmen. We don't know whether or not they're going to be good or bad based on the way that this

deal goes, but there is one certainty about this. They are taking an inherent risk by using a leverage play that involves leaving what I believe to be a very good situation. So they think, and it's the same thing that happens with me and you and other people in job markets. If you tell your employer or you tell who's writing your checks that you are willing to leave, once you pull that card, you have to be willing to leave. That's the last thing that you can do leverage wise for a deal falls apart and a marriage falls apart. So from this standpoint, you have to acknowledge the risk that they're taking here, where the increase in money was

important enough to them to make a potential change on where he's going to college. Now, if he ends up at a place like USC and he's coached by Lincoln Riley, maybe it will still work out in their favor. But from the way that things are going right now on the good business, bad business scale, I'm not necessarily sure I'm tilting towards good business right now from the NECO camp. Well, this has been handled terribly from their side. Yes.

Just from a messaging PR standpoint, they're really bad at that. We can agree on that because all they did was attack the report when they knew the report was true. That's the stupidest thing you can do. I don't know what you know, you're gonna get refuted eventually. Let's try to break it down to what is the strategy?

That's the thing I don't understand. Like this isn't, and like again, this has been going on for months, right? Like this isn't just, we decided to renegotiate two days ago. This has been an ongoing discussion internally behind the scenes for months. They weren't able to come to a deal when leverage was at its highest, which is more better than market, right? It's just simple math here.

More people looking for quarterback means more options and more likelihood that somebody is willing to pay what you want. Now, if we're doing it and we're not going to practice the day before the screen the spring game and there's some question about whether he's on an airplane to California right now and you only have two or three places that are we even certain that those two or three places are gonna pay like what if he gets paid less like

that's the thing right because you've taken Tennessee off the board as a bitter right if if they tell you to kick rocks. So now you need you only need two bitters. So I think it's possible to get two bitters in this situation. But if you only have one, you're going to get lowballed. Yeah, and like also to the market

resets in sports all the time. And like for instance, I invested in a rookie card for Christian Campbell, the infielder for the Red Sox. And I saw that he signed a deal for $60 million recently. And that was the Red Sox ploy to get a young talented player to sign a pretty big deal that he might not be worth in the moment to try to get a deal on the back end when he blows up. But like when he blows up, he signed this deal.

Like, if you're in the middle of a contract term, and I know that's not what's happening right now because in college football, based on the- You're always in the middle of a term, but it never ends. But like it's not, you don't have no options. So I understand why, but like at the same time too, I think you also would be coming at a greater strength or a higher leverage point if your play last year was something that people viewed,

you could not live without. Like if DJ Lagway pulled this stuff right now, like DJ Lagway would have more leverage because he's an absolute no doubt about it star. Like there's still some question about whether or not- And Florida gave DJ Lagway more money for that very reason. Right. So like, it's not a, like, because here's the thing.

You have a Tennessee fan base that I think is probably on board now with the notion of letting him go. I think they're going to have to get very comfortable with that because that's probably what seems to be happening at the moment. But I think that Tennessee fans would be probably more angry at Tennessee's collective and all the people who are writing these checks if Nico was somebody they felt they could not live without as a program. Like they are totally on board with the notion that like if you want to behave this way, you want to bail on our practice the day before the spring game and you want to go and not you know call the coaches back or whatever is happening behind the scenes right now then you can go kick rocks. And I think that that's a huge step in terms of the program,

as we try to assert. Somebody in the chat asked us, if we were the coach, what would we do? I think being Josh Hyple right now, based on the behavior of Nico in his camp, probably has more wiggle room in terms of responsibility and how season would have gone had this gone a different way. I think there's more sympathy and more understanding of what might be a pullback season as a result of this as a result of this behavior. So like in my opinion, I think that Nico probably should have gone back to the table. I don't blame him and his camp for trying to do it, but I think that they messed this up and they did it. They messed up the timing of it. They messed up a lot of things. A note, if you're watching on Twitter right now

and you wanna keep watching the rest of the show, join us on YouTube. You'll see the link just below the Twitter feed that you're watching. So join us on YouTube. Hop into the chat on YouTube because it is blazing right now. Blazing right now.

So come join us. We'll all be on YouTube together. We have a lot to talk about and Andy, I want to finish this. Thought though, because we have talked about in the past, the tribalism of college football, right and how we used to connect to the sport. Because the people who go to our colleges live in our dorms, eat at our restaurants, drink in our bars, we have an inherent connection. And I understand that there's a certain part of that that's missing as a result of one-year rentals and NIL deals. But I think the one thing that you will see unequivocally from the Tennessee fan base, especially from what I was reading, I was interacting with people on Fall Quest today, is that the, you know, you're not bigger than the logo on our helmet mentality is still there, right? Like there right like very much a part of being a fan and like party is gonna be there right long after we're gone.

Long after anybody who's playing right now is gone and i think that's one thing that people need to need to consider and i think that there is a difference between being money motivated. it there is a difference between being money motivated and that being ok in todays day and age and how you carry yourself. Even in pro sports people are money oriented all the time. People leave get traded. Everything is about money in pro sports. But when people start acting out and doing things that are distasteful to the fan base then all of a sudden perspective of how valuable they are and how much they're beloved by the fan base that needs to back up the brains truck to pay the

guy is completely out of the window. So like I think that once you start like I don't even know like if this is a whole lesson on like you cannot hold out in college like even even like even uh well I think you learned that the fan base will turn on you and I don't blame the fan base. I don't blame the Tennessee fans one bit because I stand with them. Yeah, I'm thinking of and if I'm Josh Heiple, I'm thinking of my roster, the rest of my roster. Yeah, the guys that aren't holding out. And yes, you can do that. It is it is your choice. It is your right. But there are consequences to it. And that you and I talked about this on the phone last night. We didn't bring it up this morning,

and I wanna bring it up now. I don't think people understood exactly what Kirby Smart said last week. I think people kinda misunderstood him. What Kirby Smart said last week when he was complaining about all this was, at Georgia, they're never gonna recruit people whose primary motivation is money. Now, everybody is motivated by money in some way, shape or

form, but not everybody is a pure biggest bag person. Most people look at other factors. And what Kirby was saying is, I'm not going to take a bunch of biggest bag people because if that's all I take, I don't have a team. Those people won't play like a team. And I think if you go look at the 2022 Texas A&M signing class, great example of that. Lots of biggest bag people didn't play well as a team. So if you've got a person or and I hate to just throw this on Nico because of what we know in this situation. This is his this is his camp. His dad is very involved in this.

I don't think Nico is making these decisions on his own because reports were that he was happy at Tennessee. This is an instance of like not being miserable in Knoxville, thinking it's too cold in the city, not loving Neyland Stadium and the colors that he wears. This is a purely financial thing, but this is what I wrote in the column too, Andy. If you go get somebody who made money the priority, right or wrong, during the recruiting process, then you cannot be blindsided later on when it's still about the money. Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, we're exactly the person they told you they were when you recruited them. It's like, you know, cheating on on finding

your wife by cheating on somebody and then when she cheats on you, then you know, you should know that if a person is willing to do that, then they might do that again. So like it's just a situation where and like listen this isn't just like being negative towards Nico as a human being. Who am I to say that money shouldn't be the main drive? No he could go try to get the biggest bag he wants that's his right but. He's right as a human being but I also don't know that not showing up to practice is the best way to get the most money.

It's it's not. It's because because you've essentially removed Tennessee is a bitter because it sounds like Tennessee is done with him and going back to what I was saying about Kirby Smart, there are way more people in college football, way more players who look at the deal they have and they say, that's fair. I'm going to play this out. Then people who say every two months, I need the biggest bag. I got to renegotiate my deal.

There are a lot more people who just say, I signed a deal. I'm the biggest bag. I got to renegotiate my deal. There are a lot more people who just say I signed a deal. I'm good with it. I'm going to play through it. You want more of those on your team. overwhelmingly than guys who want that biggest bag because the guys who want the biggest bag in this environment until things change until the schools admit they're paying them for football and can sign them to contracts that you can actually enforce,

you need more guys who are gonna say, my deal's good, it's fair. You will get a better team that way. Yeah, and Andy too, there's more than 130 teams. And I know that 80% of those teams aren't in the ballpark for how much money's being made. But like, in pro sports, the market gets reset once every free agency cycle, like, or it gets reset all the time. You know what I

mean? Like, it's like, how do you decide when is the right time to negotiate when the market is being reset 15 times in a two week period during the portal window? And it's like, yes, Carson Beck might be getting paid more than him, right? Is it that because that's the number one comparison right now. Carson Beck went to Miami. Dereen Mensah at Duke is another comparison. Yeah. Also too, you have to make a note too of like they're getting paid X number of dollars because the desperation of the teams that were in those positions to have to have somebody's different.

So it's not always just a reflection on how good you are as a player. It's also the circumstance of how that player arrived there. It's also some of the basketball numbers that are getting thrown around right now because the basketball portal just opened up and there are some obscene numbers being tossed around a basketball because the rosters are so much smaller. So guys who are really good can command more but it is it's

crazy how all of this has turned out. We've been asking the chat who's next at Tennessee. So Jake Merklinger is the guy on the roster who, if that's, if they're going to go with somebody who's on the roster, he's probably going to be QB1. Merk Slinger, nickname, love it. I think they'll go after somebody else though. Now I don't want to speculate on who that's going to be Ari because it's going to be somebody who is on another roster right now and that team's fan base probably doesn't know they're going to go in the portal.

But I would imagine there's several somebodies that Tennessee's kicking around and considering right now. Somebody in the chat said Malik Murphy and I know we don't, I just was laughing because it's like, yeah, let's do Joe Milton again. Yeah. Now, uh, listen, when we just mentioned Darien, meant to go on to Duke, like when Malik Murphy entered the portal, everybody's like, what are we? Nine wins at Duke? What are they,

what are they doing? Well, cause they were getting Darien Mensah. That's, that's why. Yeah. Um, yeah. So we don't have to go down that road right now, but we will probably be going down that road quite a bit here in the next week if they will be going down that road next week. I'm assuming I bet. Just throwing it out there. So the portal opens on Wednesday. I bet we're going to see a quarterback that we weren't expecting to leave enter the portal with a do not contact tag. And I'll probably post a checkerboard in zone as soon as that happens. Yeah. There are a few that pop into my head.

I it's like so hard for me to not do that. We're not going to do it, but like there are a few that just instantly pop. I don't I just don't think it's fair right now. To those teams, those coaches there are there are guys that I feel like would make that could be cheaper. That could make Tennessee really good this year. Yeah, I think that they might wind up paying having to pay more than they paid Nico.

Yeah, but that that's a conversation for next week. We can have that conversation next week because we will see people entering the portal and this does sort of supercharge that cycle. And then, of course, if Nico does leave, which is what it looks like is happening right now, where does he wind up? Obviously the two schools in LA, USC and UCLA, the ones we talked about, Notre Dame has been thrown out there,

but we don't know exactly where that's at. Cause again, right now, talking to people, I talked to somebody from Tennessee just before we went live, and I said, have you guys heard from him yet? And they said no. So. That's the most alarming thing about this,

the like going dark thing. He was at the offensive coordinator's house last night. They had a dinner for the quarterback group. And so, we're talking about less than 18 hours ago. He was very much in the fold and then he was not at practice. Yeah, so good business, bad business, Domino's. It's all here. And, you know, we're going to be talking about all of it.

But like, yeah, it's a this is kind of a roller coaster and also to maybe the first frontier of what it's going to be like in terms of, you know, what other people do. Andy, the other thing too, you have to take into account here is that if Nico gets away with this, or Tennessee were to give him the bigger bag, you also have to consider a what does that mean for the rest of your roster? Cause I can only imagine the kids who are running through practice today without their quarterback there, how they probably feel about the way things are going. But then to what you send to every other really good player out there that signed a contract or, or creating that's why if you're hypal, I think your decision is so easy at

this point. You have to think of the rest of the team here. You can't put one as good as Nico might be. You can't put him above the rest of the team. And look, you guys who've watched me and listened to me for a long time, you know how I feel about this. I am Mr. Pay the players. Yeah. But if you're the coach of this team,

you got to think about the team. Yeah. We've all been in organizations with people whose sole focus is the biggest bag. They're not good teammates usually. Yeah. Yeah. Or once you get the biggest bag, if it continues to be about getting a bigger bag after you've already accomplished it because like, listen, you you were part of the reporting team

that helped Stuart Mandel get the story about the $8 million deal in 2022 in November, right? Oh no, Stuart got that on his own. Oh, okay, I thought you- We did the Jaden Rashada thing together. Oh, the Rashada thing, okay. But when Stu got that, that was groundbreaking news. Like that was a big, big deal.

Like Nico got the best of it upfront. And I think that it turned out that Tennessee probably made the wise deal in hindsight, knowing now what quarterbacks are being paid and what he's demanding. But Nico got a pretty good deal. He was the first frontier of $8 million man going to a place for multi-year deal that would have an opportunity to make a lot of money. So we're not talking about a guy who's been aggrieved. I think the Tennessee has treated him fairly. And I think they've done right by him. And if you're a Tennessee fan, I think that you can go to bed tonight, regardless of what happens, you're feeling good about the way that your program treated him. And his next move, whether that mean

is returning to Tennessee, which seems unlikely, or going somewhere else and making less money or more, I don't know. I think that Tennessee is in a position and will continue to be in a position with their collective and with their fan buy-in to situate their roster with players that are good enough to get them to where they wanna go.

So I don't think the program is dying or that you, uh, you know, you're screwed. You know, it might be a rougher season this year, depending on how it turns out. Uh, but like, listen, here's the thing that you should, that I want to leave you with. When we woke up on Wednesday morning, we didn't think we'd be having a Friday night conversation about whether or not Nico is going to be on the team anymore, right? As quickly as this happened to you, it could happen to somebody else. Like

this stuff happens like this. And like the way that we view seasons changes dramatically, especially on the eve of the portal opening on Wednesday. So don't don't be upset. I know it's a rough look right now with the rough thing to kind of internalize. But I've got a sneaky suspicion that Tennessee is going to end up okay. I think Tennessee is gonna end up fine. And I think it's a better situation for them

if somebody who doesn't wanna be there isn't there, or somebody who feels like they're being unfairly treated isn't there. Cause I just, I don't know how the team dynamic works. And again, I have always been in favor of paying the players, but I think you have to understand as the person who's getting paid that there still is a team aspect to this. You have to understand your place in it, how everybody views you.

And there was a way to handle this. And Nico's team handled it as poorly as it could have possibly been handled and it's funny because I see this stuff on on social media when people say these agents these agents these agents. Nico's agents agents his dad and a family friend who is was one of those guys in recruiting like those are his agents. If if Nico had been repped by like Drew Rosenhouse or clutch sports. I think this all would have been.

Different yeah, I think this would have been handled in December very quietly. He would have gotten some more money, not that much more money and would have been done. Yeah. You know, in the chat too, there's a lot of people in here and we thank you for being here. It means a lot to us that it's active, is that, you know, people are saying, I want vols for life in there, right?

And then somebody else responded, there's no such thing as a vol for life. And I systematically wanna push back on the notion that you can't take care of yourself financially while also being committed to your organization. Like, listen, I'm no perfect human being, but I joined on three, they took care of me. We got to join forces again, and I'm happy as hell to be here. But like the second people started taking shots at Pete, like I was out there today trying to, you know, have his back because he's a good young reporter. to have his back because he's a good young reporter. And it's like, I have great, tremendous pride

for this organization and being here in the growth of it, in this podcast and being a part of the network and the fan sites and all the people that we work with our colleagues. And I got taken care of to come here, okay? But that doesn't mean that I don't have great pride in where I work and who I'm helping support. So I think that you need to, and also too,

I'm not out looking for a new deal every two months or thinking, I don't think about my compensation at all in the middle of a contract. Now you have a contract that can actually be enforced and that's the difference. But even at the previous stops, like I wasn't somebody who was constantly with my nose. Right, I was an at-will employee the entire 11 years

I worked for Sports Illustrated. I was not looking for another deal every single minute of that time. So I do think that like to get back to what Kirby Smart said, and I think it's a tremendous column that you know somebody should write. I think since it's your premise, I'll give you the right away. If you don't, I'll do it. Thank you. But you know the there is threading the needle of somebody who wants to be taken care of, but somebody who will be loyal to the people who take care of them. I don't think that everybody is just pay me or die. You know what I mean? And greed and that's a and there's a good way to do that. So if you're a Tennessee fan, don't give up on the notion of

VFL. I think that those are out there and I and I hope and even just as I Even in the chat with a great example, the guys Ziegler Tennessee's point guard on the basketball team. That's a ball for life. If ever there was one, the guys played almost entirely in the NIL era. He got paid. He could have gone elsewhere. Yeah. That's a ball for like there are people who love the school they go to who even though they are getting paid by the school and have the option to go get paid by other people, there are people who still love the school

or love their coaching staff, love their teammates. We had Matt Brown on the show earlier this week and he's a Mormon who could have gone to BYU and decided not to because the pursuit of his own happiness was more important than dollars. It's not just in sports, there's a lot of people out there that don't prioritize money over their own happiness. And I and I and I'm like, I don't want to like it to come across like I'm piling on Nico.

Yeah, yeah. Or Ramsey in the chat. Jeremiah Smith. I don't know if you're my Smith could get 15 to 20 million. But yeah, there are places that would pay Jeremiah Smith more than Ohio State does. But he's staying there for a reason. Yeah, and like here like like Mattie Black here, uh, As a lifelong 45 year old balls fan, I say let him go We want balls for life and that attitude translates onto the field Nico has not played up to his current contract Let alone a new one. Um, and I I just I think that

You know that concept is still there and my hope is that it will still even through, you know, collective bargaining and, you know, rev share and NIL, that you'll still find people who are, are compensated while also maintaining love and pride for the place that they play for. So, um, I don't want to give up on that. And, you know, I, I know that. I mean, this happens, there's, there's people in the, in the NFL who want to play for one franchise and want to retire in that uniform, you know, it's not just the pursuit of money for everybody. And I think there's a needle to be thread there. And also too, with the Vols and the type of financial backing

that they have, like they have more than enough resources to go out and find those types of players. And the thing that I think is most interesting, even with the Kirby Smart thing, is that I wonder if Tennessee will change the way that they write their checks as a result of this happening. Like if they learned a lesson of like, hey, just because we could get somebody who's really, really good doesn't mean we necessarily should in the future, or if it's going to rewrite the way that everybody goes about it. Like if you're just out there looking for commas, then maybe more teams will pass on you. Because you've got to remember, Tennessee did this deal right when NIL started like there was not a lot of like brain trusted or wasn't a lot of precedent and ended up having to go to like the Tennessee Attorney General had to take the NCAA to court. the Tennessee didn't get further investigated over there. There was no data of if you spend X number of dollars on a quarterback nine times out of 10, it turns out like X. Like there was they tried to be to be trailblazers. And as we sit here right

now, you can tell by our tone, it doesn't seem like it's trending in the right direction. You know, you live and you learn from that. And I think that you adhere to to what you learned for future financial investment. And then maybe you will find a VFL that plays the quarterback position that wants to be there forever and wants to be a Tennessee legend. Cause I've been in the Manning room there, bud. You have too, we were in it together.

It's a beautiful room and being a Tennessee volunteer for life and that a lot of people would be hella proud of, very proud to be. So, you know. Yeah, the, your name here room sounds pretty good if you're a recruit. But I'm fascinated to see where this goes.

We're all going to have, unless we get word from Tennessee or from Nico's camp tonight or tomorrow morning, we're all going to be glued to the Tennessee Spring game, not on TV because nobody's Spring games are on TV anymore. But Josh Hypple's press conference after what what are they going to say about this? And it's it's just it's a crazy situation. You knew when this system was put in place, something like this was going to happen. I'm actually a little surprised it took this long. But here we are. Now, if you like this sort of discussion, and you're new here, we're on five days a week, Monday through Friday, 930 AM Eastern time every single day.

And obviously we come back as, as news breaks to we talk about college football every day and it is a sport that never ceases to be interesting. As we learned on one of the weirdest Fridays in college football history, we will talk to you again soon.