Notre Dame football doesn’t need the Nico Iamaleava drama, despite analyst claims

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that now that the “where will Nico Iamaleava go?” takes have started to surface on social media, the Notre Dame football team is getting mentioned. After all, the Fighting Irish might have the least experienced quarterback group among National Title contenders in the country.

And yes, connecting the dots between Nico Iamaleava and the Fighting Irish will draw eyeballs. Well don, college football media. You got me to pay attention to this talk and I in turn, got you to pay attention to it. But the reality of the situation is that while some analysts believe South Bend could be a landing spot for Nico Iamaleava should he leave Tennessee, it doesn’t actually make any sense.

First off, the Notre Dame football team went out of its way not to go into the portal this offseason. It certainly could have, but head coach Marcus Freeman made it clear that he wanted to go with one of Steve Angeli, CJ Carr or Kenny Minchey. Secondly, while the Volunteers did go to the playoffs, Nico didn’t exactly light the world on fire against top teams. Despite all that, J.D. Pickell is just one analyst connecting the Irish with the possible transfer quarterback.

“If a deal doesn't get done,” Pickell started his latest podcast episode. “it's very fair to speculate that the next step would be to test the water. So if that were to happen, where would he end up? What are some places that could make sense? Again, we're speculating, but I think you look at where he's from. Guys from the West Coast, from the Los Angeles area.” 

He then went on to say that both USC and UCLA should be considered contenders if Nico leaves Tennessee. And then he turned his attention to Notre Dame.

"“Notre Dame is one that I am just – I said it for a while, man. I've said it for a while. I think Notre Dame is in a spot across the board on their roster where the talent level is so high to where you can expect to make the playoff, I think, every single year, the way Marcus Freeman has recruited and developed. And you're coming off a year where you were, I mean, in the fourth quarter playing for a national championship. If you get out of spring and you're not 1,000% sure, like I said about USC and UCLA, that one of those guys on your depth chart is good enough to get you back to where you were last year, I think Nico's proven he is.”"

Count me as firmly in the camp that the Vols quarterback hasn’t proven he really is. And count me as firmly in the camp that Notre Dame football knew what they had when they decided not to go into the portal this offseason and they won’t panic and change course this spring.