Tenasi Quarterback Nico Iamaleva officially announced its transfer to UCLA via a social media post on Sunday.
“My journey in UT is over,” he wrote on Instagram. “This decision was incredibly difficult, and from the truth, nothing I expected to make soon. But I have confidence in God’s time, and I believe he is taking me forward where I should be.
“Even though this chapter is ending, a new chapter has started and I am committed to UCLA!”
IAMALEAVA was a highly considered recruitment that took Tennessee to the college football playoffs last season. He was number 1 in ESPN’s transfer portal rankings and immediately gives UCLA one of the most famous players in the game on his arrival. Bruins are coming in the beginning of 5-7 by coach Dehan Foster.
IAMALEVA, Long Beach, Five Star Sambhavna from California, was recruited out of high school by UCLA. His younger brother, Maden Emalev, excluded the UCLA from the high school, but changed his commitment on the morning of the day of signing and signed with Arkansas.
Those recruitments gave both sides the ability to move very familiar and potentially quickly.
IAMALEAVA passed for 2,616 yards, 19 touchdowns and 5 interception as a starter in its first season, but in nine matches against SEC opponents and Ohio state in the playoffs, he thrown away only twice for more than 200 yards.
Tennessy’s crime ended number 9 at the conference in Scoring with 25.0 points per game in SEC Play. The crime of the volunteers was number 1 in escaping and the number 11 to pass the league play.
The UCLA is coming out of a season, in which it was number 14 in scoring crime and number 12 in total crime in Big Ten Play.
Iamaleva was earning $ 2.4 million at Tennessee when he signed with a Tenasi-based collective Spire Sports Group, when he was still in high school. The deal would have paid him to a limit of $ 10 million, which lived in Tennessi for four years.
Tennessy coach Josh Hupel announced last week after the spring game of volunteers that the program was moving without IAMALEAVA after practicing and meeting on April 11. He did not alert anyone in the team and was later non -responsible.
Hupel thanked Emalava and said the situation unfortunate, but said, “There is no one greater than Power Tea, and it includes me.”
IAMALEAVA, a growing redsirt sophomore, officially entered the transfer portal with a dow-nott-contact tag.
ESPN’s Pete Thmail contributed to this report.
