This past weekend, Tennessee settled its lawsuit with the NCAA over NIL payments. Nico Iamaleava’s $2 million a year contract was at the heart of the lawsuit, and the settlement officially brings the wild west of payments to players in college football 100 percent above board. Iamaleava has now altered the sport forever.
At the same time, though, Iamaleava’s closest recruiting competition, his potential SEC “rival” and a likely competitor for NFL Draft slots in the future, Arch Manning, began his quest to become the face of the Texas Longhorns. The timing for the two was honestly too perfect.
Vegas has Manning as the 2025 Heisman favorite, he was the feature of an ESPN interview about taking over for Quinn Ewers, and now he’s inking major NIL deals, most notably with Red Bull. Everybody expects him to be better than Ewers, and by waiting to start before getting an NIL deal, in some ways, he’s the anti-Iamaleava.
All of this should put the Vols quarterback on notice.
Despite having a decent first season, nobody would accuse Iamaleava of living up to the money he was given to sign with Tennessee. He certainly didn’t have much help from his receivers or his offensive line, with both tackles battling injuries this past year. Still, he had his own shortcomings, most notably in a loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Manning has already shown flashes of greatness and filled in for the injury-prone Ewers plenty this past year. He’s got the better pedigree and is playing for a coach in Steve Sarkisian whose profile as a quarterback guru is ahead of Josh Heupel’s right now, although that fluctuates between the two.
With both teams having made the College Football Playoff this past year, Texas and Tennessee are fighting each other in a lot of ways despite not playing each other this upcoming year. A lot of that is going to come down to the quarterback play between Iamaleava and Manning.
Obviously, given that he comes from family royalty, Manning is going to generate more coverage when it comes to hype. However, it’s not like that puts less pressure on Iamaleava, as that NIL money is still hanging over him. Simply put, the loser of this “rivalry” will get more unfair hate than one might expect.
There’s always the chance these two stay through 2026 and then face each other, and they could face off in the CFP next year, but Iamaleava has to stay in the debate over who is the better quarterback, at least at the college level. If he can’t UT is in trouble.
