‘Tennessee got away with all of this’ – National college football analyst believes the Vols pulled a fast one on everyone
Fox Sports national college football analyst Joel Klatt thinks the Tennessee Vols pulled a fast one on everyone during the offseason. Klatt said on Monday on The Joel Klatt Show that he thinks Tennessee “got away” with controlling the narrative during Nico Iamaleava’s controversial departure from the program in April. Iamaleava left Tennessee amid a […]
Fox Sports national college football analyst Joel Klatt thinks the Tennessee Vols pulled a fast one on everyone during the offseason.
Klatt said on Monday on The Joel Klatt Show that he thinks Tennessee “got away” with controlling the narrative during Nico Iamaleava’s controversial departure from the program in April.
Iamaleava left Tennessee amid a report from On3 that he was negotiating a new NIL deal.
Klatt, however, maintains that Iamaleava left in large part because of concerns about Tennessee’s unique offense under Josh Heupel.
“Here’s why I would defend Nico a little bit is because he never really got a chance to tell his side of the story,” said Klatt. “Tennessee ran out basically a propaganda effort, and got to tell the story without Nico being involved at all. It was not all about money. It really wasn’t. If it was, he wouldn’t have gone to UCLA — which is the telltale sign. He wanted the offense to grow with him. And let me tell you why. That offense that Josh Heupel runs is almost like a glorified high school offense. It’s the old Art Briles offense that they ran at Baylor, and the reason that it doesn’t develop a quarterback is because everything is a half-field read. So it’s wide receiver choice routes on one side of the field, which is why none of those Baylor quarterbacks made it in the NFL.
“Nico understood that, and he knew that, and so they wanted the offense to expand and to grow and to develop. And when it didn’t do that through spring football, that’s when he was like, I don’t know if this is the right place for me, or the family started to think is this not the right place for [Nico]? He never got to tell that story, because Tennessee immediately ran out there and made it a money issue and tried to take the virtuous route and say, ‘Oh, woe is us, look at what our quarterback is doing — holding us hostage.’ Which in the very same breath, or in the next sentence, Tennessee was turning around and contacting guys that were at other schools and trying to get them to transfer to Tennessee — a clear tampering violation. So Tennessee got away with all of this, from a narrative standpoint, which is unfair to Nico Iamaleava. And I hope he succeeds, and we’ll see.”
I don’t know if we’ll ever know the full story of what happened behind the scenes between Iamaleava and Tennessee. I do believe, based on various conversations with sources, that the Iamaleava camp had some concerns about the Vols’ offense and the offensive line. I don’t know if that was the sole reason that the breakup between the two sides happened — there are usually things that both sides leave out in a situation like this.
What I do know, though, is that publicly, Tennessee and Iamaleava have handled the situation with class. Heupel told reporters at SEC Media Days that he loves Nico. And Iamaleava refrained from taking any shots at Tennessee while representing UCLA at Big Ten Media Days.
As for Klatt’s comments about Tennessee and tampering, I mean, yeah, it definitely appears that the Vols were tampering with quarterbacks before they eventually landed Joey Aguilar as a transfer addition. But that’s the culture of college football — every program is tampering in some form or fashion (some are just better at hiding it). I don’t think taking a shot at Tennessee for allegedly tampering is fair when that’s fairly common in college football.
Ultimately, both sides have moved on, and I think both sides wish each other the best.
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe either side is the villain they’re made out to be — it was just an unfortunate situation. Both sides, in retrospect, probably wish it hadn’t happened how it did.
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