UNLV player who took a verbal jab at Nico Iamaleava this week backed up his words with final blow to UCLA on Saturday night
A tough start for Nico in Westwood.
Things are going from bad to worse for former Tennessee Vols QB Nico Iamaleava out on the West Coast in this early 2025 season. Nico threw for just 136 yards in UCLA’s 43-10 loss to Utah to open the season. The bad times continued on Saturday night in the Bruins’ first road game.
The latest setback for the former Vol and his current UCLA teammates came in Sin City against former Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen and the UNLV Rebels. Trailing 30-23, UCLA was pushing to complete a big fourth quarter comeback (they were down 30-13 with inside of 10 minutes to go). Iamaleava and the offense got down into Rebels territory with under two minutes left to play.
However, a player who made headlines earlier in the week came up with a play that slammed the door and backed up a public shot he took at Iamaleava. UNLV DB Aamaris Brown came up with an interception on a deflected pass that sealed the win for the Rebels and sent UCLA to 0-2.
Brown backed up his criticism of Iamaleava from earlier in the week
Brown had some strong comments about Nico during the week.
“Honestly, nothing really sticks out to me about him,” said Brown. “You know, in the past, there’s been talk about ‘five-star this, five-star that.’ I have been around plenty of five-star and four-stars — it don’t scare me. I’ve played competition technically higher than them, if you want to include Alabama and all that. Going against a guy like Nico, there’s no surprise, no excitement or nothing like that.”
That’s not something you hear players say all that often about an opponent coming into a game, whether that be out of respect or to avoid giving bulletin board material to an opponent.
However, Iamaleava did nothing to dispute that take from Brown, nor cut down on the criticism he’s received through two very subpar efforts with the Bruins. For the second straight game, Iamaleava had issues with throwing catchable balls at key points in the game, including overthrowing a wide-open receiver in the end zone in the fourth quarter while trying to rally.
That said, the Bruins had a shot with under 2 minutes left to tie the game and force overtime. But Iamaleava threw a pass over the middle to the UNLV middle linebacker. The ball bounced up in the air off his hands and ended up in Brown’s hands for the interception that all but wrapped the game up.
Iamaleava’s play certainly isn’t the only reason the Bruins have started the season off in a hole. But it’s a contributing reason as to why.
And until he starts to improve his game, then Brown likely won’t be the last opposing player to let Nico know what they think of him, whether that’s on the field during a game or in the media.
