There’s been no shortage of reactions on social media to the Nico Iamaleava saga.

Tennessee has moved on from Iamaleava, and the Volunteers’ starting quarterback has submitted paperwork to enter the NCAA transfer portal, according to reports Saturday.

Iamaleava reportedly missed Friday’s practice at Tennessee due to contract negotiations between Iamaleava and a Tennessee collective. Reports surfaced Thursday that Iamaleava wanted a new NIL deal, which was already paying him $2 million a year.

With a star player like Iamaleava holding out while threatening to hit the portal, it’s an unprecedented situation in the era of NIL (name, image and likeness), and former Clemson defensive ends KJ Henry and Xavier Thomas were among the many people who chimed in on the saga via social media:

Back in 2014, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney caught a lot of heat for his comments when he was asked about the attempted Northwestern football players union that sought to advocate for pay and other benefits from their university.

“We try to teach our guys, use football to create the opportunities, take advantage of the platform and the brand and the marketing you have available to you,” Swinney said. “But as far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else, because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.”

Swinney has since clarified his stance on NIL and professionalization, including in a recent interview with George Wrighster on Unafraid Show.

“What I said was is if they professionalize college athletics, it doesn’t become scholastic anymore. That’s because I’m passionate about education. That’s what I said,” Swinney said earlier this month. “… I have no problem with these guys – basically their rev share, their scholarship being enhanced, all those things, NIL. It’s never made sense to me that a kid can’t go do his own camp or stuff like that. I worked all through college. I was cleaning gutters, cutting grass. Probably wasn’t supposed to, but I wouldn’t have made it. Umpiring… there was never a time that I wasn’t working.

“But what I know is we have a responsibility to educate our young people. 98 percent of college players do not play in the NFL. Football’s not a game of longevity, and we have to emphasize and incentivize education. People make up their own stuff and say whatever they want. But those are people they don’t know me, they don’t know our program. All you gotta do is look at our program. Judge me by my fruit. Judge me by the fruit of this program and the kids that have come through here and the graduates and the lives that have been changed. So, we’ve lived out our purpose.

“My main thing about college football is we have to keep it scholastic. We have to keep it scholastic, and we have to help these kids. Almost 78 percent of NFL players, within two years of being out of the league, are bankrupt. … So, I’ve never wanted my guys to be a statistic like that. And those are mid-20s to 30-year-olds. You think we’re going to get a different result with an 18-, 19-, 20-year-old? No, it’s going to be worse, especially if we don’t have the right structure that emphasizes education, and we have to graduate these players. And if we do it right, it’s the greatest time in the history of football to go to college.”

–Photo courtesy of Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images