FILE – Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava (8) warms up before an NCAA college football game against Alabama, Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt, File)

(AP) — The surprise transfers of brothers Nico and Madden Iamaleava have prompted fresh questions about contracts and name, image and likeness buyouts for athletes in a college sports landscape looking increasingly like the pros.

Nico Iamaleava, who led Tennessee to the College Football Playoff last season, walked away from a reported $2.4 million NIL contract to seek higher pay elsewhere. He joined UCLA on Sunday, reportedly for half the money though terms of any NIL deal were not released.

Arkansas freshman quarterback Madden Iamaleava entered the portal this week not long after spring practices wrapped up and will join his brother at UCLA, according to multiple media reports.

Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek released a statement indicating he would support efforts by the Razorbacks’ NIL collective to enforce buyout clauses in athlete contracts. Iamaleava reportedly had a contract valued at $500,000 upon signing with Arkansas on Dec. 4, according to reports.

Arkansas Edge, the school’s collective, requires Iamaleava to repay 50% of their remaining contract value for leaving before the contract expires, according to reports. The Arkansas athletic department declined to comment and Arkansas Edge did not respond to messages.

Yurachek, in a post on X that did not name Iamaleava, wrote: “I have spoken with the leadership team at Arkansas Edge and expressed my support in their pursuit to enforce their rights under any agreement violated by our student-athletes moving forward. We appreciate Edge’s investment in our student-athletes and acknowledge the enforcement of these agreements is vital in our new world of college athletics.”

The latest cycle of transfers has seen a lot of chaos and accusations of tampering. Earlier this year, Wisconsin said it had “credible information” that Miami and Xavier Lucas made impermissible contact with each other before the former Badgers cornerback decided to transfer to his home-state school.

All this comes with final approval of the $2.8 billion NCAA antitrust settlement looming. The plan will clear the way for Division I schools to share up to $20.5 million each with their athletes annually but also assess NIL deals athletes sign with third parties.

The settlement would go into effect July 1, and athletes have been scrambling to renegotiate contracts or find better opportunities at new schools before deals valued at $600 or more must be approved through a clearinghouse that will be administered in part by financial giant Deloitte in a bid to establish fair market value.

Rich Stankewicz, the director of operations for the Happy Valley United collective backing Penn State athletics, said he thinks there is a time and place for NIL buyouts, citing a spring transfer departing before playing a snap as an example. He favors incentive-based contracts contingent on in-season academic and athletic performance.

“If more money is paid out in those time frames, that gives incentive for the player to stay and see those dollars from their contract, rather than potentially collecting up front and then deciding the grass is greener somewhere else three months later,” he told the Associated Press.

Russell White, president of The Collective Association, said buyout clauses have been baked into high-value NIL contracts for some time but that those clauses probably will become standard for all athletes going forward.

White said collectives have been mostly successful quietly coming to settlement terms with athletes who leave — which, according to New York-based employment attorney Dan Ain, is advantageous to both sides.

“Suing 19-year-old kids isn’t a great look,” Ain said.

Iamaleava, who is from Long Beach, California, initially pledged to UCLA last May. He made a signing-day flip from the Bruins to Arkansas and enrolled in January. He was the No. 3 quarterback in spring practice behind Taylen Green and KJ Jackson.

Some of the questions amid all the transferring and severed deals center on whether NIL deals are enforceable contracts with the NCAA settlement not yet approved.

Matthew Shepherd, an attorney and member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, co-sponsored the state’s NIL law. He said if Madden Iamaleava left on his own volition, the terms of the NIL deal would be subject to standard contract law.

Shepherd noted the NIL law was modified in 2023 to include a provision prohibiting a third party from offering NIL inducements to an athlete who already is enrolled at one of the state’s schools or who has entered into an enrollment contract. If that happened in Iamaleava’s case, Shepherd said, the school or third party such as an NIL collective could take legal action.

Missouri-based sports attorney Mit Winter said collectives could be hard-pressed to win court fights. If Madden Iamaleava’s contract would require him to pay back 50% of its remaining value, perhaps $200,000 in liquidated damages, Arkansas Edge would have to show why that is a reasonable estimate of damages.

Winter said if a court finds that amount to be more of a penalty than a reasonable estimate of damages, the buyout would be unenforceable.

CINCINNATI – Due to rain, Oklahoma State’s series opener at Cincinnati Friday night was suspended after 2 ½ innings at UC Baseball Stadium. The game is scheduled to resume Saturday at 1 p.m. (CDT).

 

The second game of the series will also be played Saturday and will begin approximately 45 minutes after the conclusion of the opener.  

 

Through 2 ½ innings on Friday, the game was tied 0-0, with both teams recording a hit.

 

Indianapolis – The NCAA Division II football playoffs will expand from 28 to 32 teams beginning this season to accommodate the format change that will award 16 conferences automatic bids.

They may as well have rolled out Quantum mechanics at this point. The attention span in this legal fight has flatlined for Joe Sixpack. 

LINCOLN, Neb. — Pat Stewart, the new general manager of the Nebraska football program, counted one visit to Memorial Stadium in his nearly two decades as a scout in the NFL.

The Huskers hosted Oklahoma State, and he saw Ndamukong Suh and Dez Bryant, future first-round draft picks and NFL All-Pros. Stewart doesn’t recall the year of that matchup.

But there was only one such game — in 2007, the first year of his initial stint of 11 seasons with the New England Patriots. It also happened to rate as one of the darkest days in Nebraska football history. The Cowboys led 38-0 at halftime en route to a 45-14 win. Two days later, Nebraska fired its athletic director. A coaching change came six weeks later.

Here’s hoping that Stewart’s return to the stadium in September unfolds more smoothly for Nebraska.

His introduction Thursday went well, albeit in a kind of morbidly fascinating way. In a 20-minute interview session, Stewart’s first since leaving the NFL last month after two seasons as the Patriots director of pro personnel, one Stewart answer after another seemed to eradicate the innocence of college football.

Of course, the innocence died long ago, even before the end of so-called amateurism.

Never until Thursday, though, has an administrator or coach at Nebraska spoken so plainly about the high-stakes business that is college football. Stewart addressed the football salary cap in the era of revenue sharing — a figure unreleased, for now, but expected to land in the range of $14 million — player acquisition, evaluation, valuation and the untethered landscape on which the sport is conducting business.

“I don’t have a lot of college football experience,” Stewart said, “but I could have been in this business for 15 years, and I’d probably still be on the same plane as everyone else. Because everything’s changing.”

Much like Bill Belichick, the NFL coach under whom Stewart worked longest, he talks about football in unemotional tones. It’s a contrast to Matt Rhule, who worked alongside Stewart from 2020 to 2022 when Rhule coached the Carolina Panthers.

Stewart received a three-year, $2.55 million contract from Nebraska to oversee the acquisition, retention and finance aspects of the Huskers roster. He reports to Rhule, different from some coach-GM dynamics in the NFL.

“I brought Pat in because I think he’s an absolute difference maker,” Rhule said.

Stewart said that he and Rhule see football in a similar light. “What it’s about,” Stewart said, “what kind of players we want, the type of people we want to build a team around.”

Their strengths seemingly complement each other. In assessing a player in this salary-cap system, Rhule said, personal value does not equal player value.

Rhule’s nature is to focus on personal value. The third-year coach doesn’t engage in financial conversations with his players or their families. That’s the job of Stewart.

“Those discussions can get pretty personal,” Stewart said. “When you hear where somebody values your child and it doesn’t match up with what your opinion of it is, there are going to be some feelings. So it’s kind of trying to thread that needle of being considerate to people’s emotions and feelings about how much they’re valued, where we see them falling on the roster as far as role and what we’re going to ask of them. And just trying to balance that out.”

With limited data in college to create a valuation system, Stewart said, he finds that the ask is always going to be higher than the offer.

“Sometimes, exponentially higher,” he said.

The best practice in communication is honesty.

“Tell people exactly where they stand,” Stewart said, “so nothing’s a surprise.”

An Ohio State graduate and former student manager under Jim Tressel, Stewart said he arrives daily at the Osborne Complex prepared to adjust. On Wednesday, for instance, a curveball in the House settlement case prompted Nebraska leaders to consider the likelihood that the 105-player roster limit will not go into effect in 2025.

Stewart took the news in stride. The Huskers will adjust as needed, he said.

Other nuggets from the GM on Thursday:

• Stewart’s work in the NFL exposed him often to the college game. He arrived at Nebraska with a baseline expectation. And the Huskers’ development surprised him.

“A lot of guys on defense playing with their hands at levels I wouldn’t expect,” Stewart said. “Quarterbacks who know how to go through progressions. Receivers who know how to run routes. I’ve been surprised more on the positive side of things, trying to adjust my eyes to watching a different type of football.”

He likes the talent that he saw in 14 spring practices. And that’s not all.

“The effort, the grind, the grit, the toughness of this team has been really impressive,” Stewart said.

College football remains on track to institute some version of a salary cap. Observers often compare the transfer portal in college to free agency in the NFL. But Stewart is quick to note the differences between the college and pro systems.

NFL contracts allow for incentives and deferred payment schedules that generate room for general managers to work creatively. “You really can’t do that under this setup,” he said.

Similarly, in NFL free agency, executives know for months who’s about to come on the market.

“Here, guys become available and you have to pivot right away,” Stewart said.

Transfer portal activity more resembles cutdown periods in NFL training camps when rosters shrink from 90 to 53 in one day, flooding the market with available talent.

Responsibility falls on the general manager and his staff — Stewart wants to hire several scouts — to anticipate who might enter the portal and understand their value to Nebraska in advance.

“You can look around the country every week,” Stewart said, “college and the NFL, and most (games) are decided in a five-play stretch, where a decision has to be made and you have to perform at high speeds and make decisions at a high level.”

Stewart’s job, he said, is to identify, acquire, retain and compensate players with the experience to win those five plays.

“Find good football players,” he said. “That’s pretty much the secret sauce.”

(Photo: Mitch Sherman / The Athletic)