Make or Break in Westwood: Nico Iamaleava's Last Chance to Rewrite His Story.

Written By: Daunte Lee Jones

College Football, Film, & MMA Contributor

Nico and his younger brother Madden Iamaleava.

Nico Iamaleava in a 7 on 7 event in High school.

Nico Iamaleava suited up for the Tennessee Volunteers as starting Quarterback during his Freshman year in 2024.

Nico hit the transfer portal to UCLA on April 20th, 2025.

Nico Iamaleava wasn’t always the most hated quarterback in modern college football. He was once just the kid in polynesian family where sports and culture meant everything. As a multi-sport athlete, the long beach native would be drawn in the most by football and soon would dedicate his life to the sport.

Iamaleava would start his quarterback journey at Long Beach Polytechnic High School in his freshman year before transferring to Warren High School for his sophomore and junior years, then back to Long Beach Polytechnic High School for his senior season.

During his time in highschool, his mother, Marleinna Iamaleava, would be diagnosed with stage four breast cancer an experience so traumatic enough to derail most young athlete’s careers. But for Nico, it became a lesson. Seeing his mother persevere and eventually conquer breast cancer would teach the polynesian quarterback to only focus on what is important in life because outside noise and unmeaningful criticism mean nothing compared to real life battles. This mindset would lead him to earning the Polynesian High School Football Player of the Year award and the MVP of the Polynesian Bowl.

Heading into college, Iamaleava was rated as the No. 2 overall five‑star recruit in the 2023 class. Unlike many other quarterbacks, Nico would commit early out of high school to Tennessee where he would receive a historic four-year, $8 million NIL deal straight out of high school. In his first season as a Vol, he sat behind Joe Milton to learn the offense's system and develop.

Fortunately, the quarterback would not spend too much time on the bench as at the end of that season he would be gifted the opportunity to start in the Citrus Bowl where he would prove he was worthy of the money paid to him in a four-touchdown showing to not only win the game but also earn the Citrus Bowl MVP. In the following season at Tennessee, Iamaleava would build on his momentum and show flashes of his star potential in a solid, 2616 passing yard and 19 touchdown season with only 5 interceptions.

Everyone expected Iamaleava to return to Tennessee for his redshirt sophomore season and improve to emerge as a Heisman candidate, but NIL negotiations would change everything including his reputation. After a strong season and seeing the market of what players would be getting paid in NIL deals raise, the quarterback would request a raise from his contracted $2 million per year to $4 million.

Tennessee would not budge on this deal which caused Iamaleava to make the decision to skip the team’s practice for the spring game. The effect of this decision would be for Head Coach Josh Heupel to announce that the program would be moving on from Iamaleava.

While Iamaleava would soon sign with UCLA, he would receive a substantial pay cut from his $8 million in total to only up to $1.75 million with the Bruins. Along with the loss of money, he would lose the respect of fans and his former teammates, who weren’t happy with the way he handled the situation and felt like he held the program hostage.

Currently Iamaleava is coming off an unnoteworthy season in UCLA where head coach Deshaun Foster would be fired in week 3 as well as other coordinators and coaches over the season, contributing to Nico throwing for only 13 touchdowns and 7 interceptions.

While much of the blame wasn’t placed on Iamaleava last year, this year with new head coach Bob Chesney in UCLA who previously led JMU to 12 wins and an appearance in the college football playoffs this will be the make or break season for the polynesian quarterback's career. Given how Iamaleava dealt with pressure in the past I wouldn’t be surprised to see Iamaleava officially become a star quarterback and earn the respect back from the fans.

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