With Nico Iamaleava leaving Tennessee for UCLA, little brother Madden, a 4-star quarterback in the class of 2025, is now leaving Arkansas after enrolling in January to instead play at UCLA. Instead of taking over the SEC, the new plan on the Iamaleava Dream Board is to install a QB dynasty in Westwood. At least that's the plan this week.
In news that may or may not be related, Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek on Tuesday released a statement supporting Arkansas Edge, the Razorbacks' collective, in pursuing the buyouts stipulated within the NIL contracts signed by Hog athletes. "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," Yurachek said. "We look forward to continued dialogue with all parties in resolving these matters."
— Hunter Yurachek (@HunterYurachek) April 22, 2025
Iamaleava's name is not mentioned in Yurachek's brief statement, but one doesn't have to be Leonardo Da Vinci to draw a line between Event A and Statement X.
Many in and around college athletics, myself included, have argued that the schools bring these situations upon themselves by refusing to acknowledge their athletes, or at least their football and basketball players, as employees, which would be Step 1 toward a collective bargaining agreement. Of course, we must acknowledge that Step 2, forming a players union to negotiate a CBA with, would be extremely difficult.
In the absence of a formal structure, this is what we're left with: a patchwork CBA that's not one overarching agreement binding the teams and the players' union, but a patchwork of thousands of contracts between collectives and individual athletes. We've seen one such case come to proverbial blows already, as Wisconsin claims Xavier Lucas, a football player who left for Miami in January without Wisconsin ever entering his name in the portal, is still bound by the NIL agreement that he signed.
Nico Iamaleava already serves as one test case for a player pushing his leverage with his school too far; Madden could be the second.
The most important part of Yurachek' statement is the second half of the second sentence: "We... acknowledge the enforcement of these agreements is vital in our new world of college athletics." Translation: Our donors aren't going to give to Arkansas Edge if players can take our money and leave without ever playing a snap for us.
A real CBA would prevent this. Cam Ward can't sign a contract with the Titans, then up and leave when he decides he'd rather be a Dolphin instead. But we don't have that in college football, so we're left with this instead.