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5 hours ago
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Nico Iamaleava became the talk of the college football world.
From Tennessee to UCLA, with lots of drama in between, Iamaleava made himself the new poster boy for the modern era of college football transfers and NIL deals.
It feels like nothing about the outcome was what Iamaleava wanted.
He didn't get more money. He didn't get to stay at a school that he led to the College Football Playoff.
Instead, he's across the country on a reportedly smaller NIL deal just hoping to get a chance to prove himself once again.
While most have focused on the flaws in Iamaleava's methods here, few have stopped to consider his feelings.
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ESPN reported on those in a new story out Wednesday.
"He's hurt and he's disappointed," a source close to Iamaleava told ESPN. "They're making him look like the villain and the scapegoat."
There are reports that Iamaleava got bad advice. There's a sense that maybe his team didn't know the saga they were about to enter into.
Regardless of the reasoning or the intent, it left a lot of relationships hurting.
Folks at Tennessee feel let down by Iamaleava. He probably feels a bit let down by the Volunteers.
It's understandable why he's become the scapegoat of this whole thing, but he's certainly not the only one at fault.
The system itself, so rapidly changing in recent years, set up a situation like this to happen. Iamaleava was just the first to take the bait in a way that ended poorly.
Now, all he can do is try to take his hurt to UCLA and turn it into fuel.
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