Nico Iamaleava is latest example of the danger star ratings present in NIL era
The last 48 hours with quarterback Nico Iamaleava leaving Tennessee have sent a firm message across the country when it comes to Name, Image, and Likeness: it's extremely complicated. Over the past few years, where NIL has become a mainstay in the world of college football, it's presented difficulties across the entire landscape of the […]
The last 48 hours with quarterback Nico Iamaleava leaving Tennessee have sent a firm message across the country when it comes to Name, Image, and Likeness: it's extremely complicated.
Over the past few years, where NIL has become a mainstay in the world of college football, it's presented difficulties across the entire landscape of the sport without much guidance from the NCAA. That isn't a surprise because they spent decades trying to suppress the "student athlete" from earning money.
Nico Iamaleava departure is symptom of a bigger problem
Right now, there aren't any real guidelines or protocol teams and players can go to when it comes to NIL. The fault of that lies directly on the NCAA, as they should have had a plan years ago when this came into effect.
As things currently sit, teams are throwing out huge amounts of money at young players without a lot of results. It's the nature of the business that even NFL teams see, but they have a lot more information to work with.
When it comes to college recruits, there is significantly less information, especially when you consider the level of competition they play at. It's significantly different from one area, let alone one state, to another. The top quarterbacks in the 2023 recruiting class have all changed schools, with the only exception being Arch Manning.
Teams are paying these top recruits to come in and be the guy, but they aren't delivering the way they are paid. It's a catch-22 because the only way you can get them to commit to your school is due to a large NIL package. The 2023 recruiting class is a prime example of what can happen in the new world of recruiting.
Now, we aren't saying that every recruit is going to be a miss. For instance, the Florida Gators hit massively last year on DJ Lagway, who was the number two quarterback in the 2024 recruiting class. The idea behind star ratings is to provide a guideline of who projects to be the best college football players, but it's an imperfect science, including zero-star recruit Cam Ward projected to go first overall in the NFL Draft at the end of the month.
It's just a cautionary tale for colleges to consider in this new world of pay for play.
