Tennessee coach Josh Heupel was on the team bus Saturday morning as it pulled in front of Neyland Stadium for the annual spring game. It was the end of a tumultuous, and potentially career-defining, week.

The Volunteers had just split with their star quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, after an attempted renegotiation of Iamaleava’s compensation for the 2025 season fell through.

Heupel and Iamaleava had always had a strong relationship, but when the QB didn’t report to practice Friday, there was little choice. “We’re moving on as a program without him,” Heupel would say later.

After all, how can you run a college team when your leader is holding out?

“There’s nobody bigger than the ‘Power T,'” Heupel said.

A great line. And a true one that would ring out as a rallying cry to NIL-weary coaches across the country: “If they want to play holdout, they might as well play get out,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal echoed.

Still, this is the SEC. This is major college football with all the expectations and pressure. This is a coaching profession where careers can turn on a single game, let alone season. “Do it the right way” tends to work only if you win.

As Heupel was about to step off the bus to face a crowd of Volunteers fans, his team was, at least on paper, less of a contender than two days prior. The reaction could have gone in any direction.

He was greeted with roaring cheers.

Iamaleava’s legacy as a quarterback remains unknown, a work in progress for the 20-year-old with three years of collegiate eligibility remaining.

In terms of his impact on the early days of the NIL era in college football though, he is a seminal figure, somehow representing both ends of the pendulum swing of player empowerment.

In the spring of 2022, Iamaleava, then just a high school junior, agreed to a four-year deal worth approximately $8 million with Tennessee’s NIL collective, Spyre Sports Group. It included a $350,000 up-front payment, per reporting by the Athletic, with money paid out during his senior season at Warren High School in California.

It was a bold, and strategically smart, play by Tennessee. While other schools were wading cautiously into NIL and the NCAA was feverishly trying to set up so-called “guardrails,” the Vols smartly saw where things were headed. When the NCAA eventually challenged the deal, the state’s attorney general stepped in and won an injunction.

Now, however, the player who was once cheered and who was paid millions before becoming the full-time starter is the poster child for NIL backlash. Rather than play out the final season of his deal — which would pay him about $2.2 million — Iamaleava reportedly wanted some $4 million that was commensurate with what other quarterbacks who transferred this year were getting.

Asking for more was Iamaleava’s right, but with rights comes risk. As with any negotiation, you can push too far.

Iamaleava is a promising and tough player, but 11 of his 19 touchdown passes last season came against lesser competition. He has great potential, but something didn’t sit right in Knoxville with how the process has played out.

This felt obnoxious.

“It’s unfortunate, just the situation and where we’re at with Nico,” Heupel said. “I want to thank him for everything that he’s done since he’s gotten here … a great appreciation for that side of it.”

That said, if being the starter and cornerstone at Tennessee — with its rich history, its massive fan base, its QB-developing head coach, its SEC spotlight and years of familiarity — isn’t enough without a few more bucks, then so be it.

It can’t all be about money, even these days.

“This program’s been around for a long time,” Heupel said. “A lot of great coaches, a lot of great players that came before, laid the cornerstone pieces, the legacy, the tradition that is Tennessee football. It’s going to be around a long time after I’m done and after they’re gone.”

Whatever games Tennessee might lose without Iamaleava, it gained in dignity by drawing a line in the sand. That’s what the fans were rightfully cheering; a boomerang that saw the school claw back some power.

Just as Iamaleava had the right under current rules to walk away if his demands weren’t meant, so too could the Volunteers. If it’s all business, then let it be all about business.

Iamaleava will be fine, mind you. He has already made more money than most Americans ever will, and he can’t legally drink yet. And this isn’t the first of these kinds of disputes, just the first that was so public and messy.

Iamaleava might or might not get $4 million next season. Negotiations were poorly managed, costing the player leverage and reputation. The market for a guy with questionable commitment, especially during the late transfer cycle, could be limited, what with big-time schools mostly set at QB.

He will still get plenty though. Would he have developed better long term under Heupel playing for the Vols? Well, Iamaleava didn’t think it was worth finding out.

Again, his career, his choice. It’s all fair game.

As for Tennessee, it might not even take a step back this season. Having a QB focused on his next deal rarely works in the first place. This might even be a boost for team chemistry.

Long term, it’s still Tennessee. It’s still Rocky Top. Heupel still has the No. 1 quarterback recruit in the Class of 2026 — Faizon Brandon of North Carolina — committed.

Most importantly, the Vols served a very public reminder that spending cash doesn’t assure anything. Money matters, but it has to be on the right guys — just as it is in the NFL or NBA. Think of how some of those big-budget Texas A&M recruiting classes worked out.

Ohio State is believed to have had the largest NIL budget last season. If it had gone to players who cared only about their deals and not each other, the Buckeyes would have collapsed after the loss to Michigan. Instead they got stronger.

What Iamaleava, once the poster child for players getting their value when he was still a recruit, has become is proof that a team can have values, too.

A program has to stand for something.

Tennessee showed it does, and that is why Heupel, at the end of a difficult week, found Tennessee fans standing for something as well.

To cheer.