The Athletic<\/a>, Iamaleava\u2019s camp and Tennessee couldn\u2019t agree on a revenue-sharing contract, and Iamaleava held out near the end of the Volunteers\u2019 spring practice.<\/p>\nHoldouts are old hat in professional sports, but who could have seen this coming in college athletics a decade ago?<\/p>\n
Iamaleava wasn\u2019t the sole reason the Volunteers were in the playoffs, but he had a solid year, finishing the season with 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns (with five interceptions) through the air and 358 yards and three scores on the ground.<\/p>\n
Was he worth $4 million per year, though?<\/p>\n
A source told The Athletic that Iamaleava was seeking a deal that would be \u201cnearing\u201d the top of the quarterback market at $4 million.<\/p>\n
With the decision to hold out of practice and the amount of money he was asking for, Tennessee decided the juice wasn\u2019t worth the squeeze and Iamaleava entered the spring transfer portal. The Volunteers had one of the nation\u2019s best defenses last season and felt that it could win without Iamaleava.<\/p>\n
Iamaleava landed at UCLA, which was in need of a quarterback, but his deal isn\u2019t at the top of the quarterback market. On3\u2019s Pete Nakos reported that Iamaleava\u2019s compensation at UCLA is in the $1.2 million range.<\/p>\n
In a strange twist, former UCLA QB Joey Aguilar transferred to Tennsesee and became the Volunteers\u2019 new quarterback, while Iamaleava transferred to Westwood and will be the Bruins\u2019 starting signal-caller.<\/p>\n
UCLA enters the second year of the Deshaun Foster era \u2014 and its second season in the Big Ten Conference \u2014 after a 5-7 campaign, the same record Utah posted last year. <\/p>\n
Adding to the similarities is the fact that both teams have new offensive coordinators. Change was needed after the Bruins scored just 18.4 points per game last season, so UCLA hired Tino Sunseri, who guided Indiana\u2019s No. 2 scoring offense last season (41.3 points per game).<\/p>\n
There are transfers aplenty on offense, including Cal running back Jaivian Thomas, Michigan State running back Jalen Burger, Utah running back Anthony Woods, Utah (and Cal) receiver Mikey Matthews and UCF receiver Titus Mokiao-Atimalala.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Utes, who scored just 23.6 points per game, hired New Mexico\u2019s Jason Beck, who called the nation\u2019s No. 4 most productive offense (484.2 yards per game). <\/p>\n
On the other side, Dampier will be making his highly-anticipated debut for the Utes.<\/p>\n
After last season\u2019s offensive woes, it won\u2019t take much for Dampier to dazzle Ute fans, especially if he can keep up last season\u2019s production while cleaning up turnovers and improving his passing accuracy.<\/p>\n
Dampier threw for 2,768 yards and 12 touchdowns (on 58% accuracy with 12 interceptions) and ran for 1,166 yards and 19 touchdowns. His statistical achievements didn\u2019t just come against Mountain West teams, either.<\/p>\n
He threw for 260 yards and three touchdowns, with two interceptions, on 57% passing, and rushed for 130 yards and two scores against Arizona. Against Washington State, Dampier threw for 174 yards and a score on 44% accuracy, but won the game on the ground, rushing for 193 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries, including the game-winning touchdown.<\/p>\n
Aside from Utah\u2019s offensive line, which returns every starter, including tackles Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu, nearly every player that will start on offense on Saturday is new.<\/p>\n
That includes wide receivers Tobias Merriweather (Cal) and Larry Simmons (Southern Miss) and running backs Wayshawn Parker (Washington State) and NaQuari Rogers (New Mexico). <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been quite awhile since the Utes started the season with a new offensive coordinator, and while coach Kyle Whittingham says Utah\u2019s offense will be \u201calmost a carbon copy of what New Mexico was in philosophy,\u201d there were still be new wrinkles that Beck has added this offseason.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s clash is one of just five between two Power Four teams that day and will cap off the first week of college football with a 9 p.m. MDT kickoff.<\/p>\n
The immediate test out of the gate could tell us a lot about both teams \u2014 especially on offense.<\/p>\n
How will Iamaleava fare on a new team with a short acclimation period? How will Dampier, and Utah\u2019s offense, play against a Power Four opponent? How will Beck\u2019s offense differ from Ludwig\u2019s?<\/p>\n
All of these questions, and more, will be answered in just six days at the Rose Bowl. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Utah Utes-UCLA Bruins matchup is one of the more anticipated games nationally in Week 1, especially in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":173277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,1680,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-173276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-news-feed-local","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115087182656736511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}