Iamaleava departure just one symptom of Pittman's, Hogs' crazy week

Razorbacks waiting in limbo with the rest of college football as settlement hits snag

Arkansas Razorbacks quarterback Madden Imaleava follows through on a pass in spring practice drills on the outdoor fields in Fayetteville, Ark. | Nilsen Roman-Hogs on SI Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — For all the fanfare that Madden Iamaleava's abrupt departure to UCLA came with, it was not a surprise to coach Sam Pittman.

"A lot of times where there's smoke there's fire," Pittman said. "We had heard some rumors to that but there's always rumors going around. So, I don't know that I was totally surprised."

It also might not be the most consequential thing to happen in the past few days to the Razorbacks and the rest of college football.

Iamaleava was buried behind both Taylen Green and KJ Jackson on the depth chart as a true freshman.

Given the volatility that college football rosters come with, even if he had stayed, there was no guarantee that Iamaleava would ever actually play a down for Arkansas in an actual game.

The entire college football world was given more volatility after senior United States District Court Judge Claudia Wilken threatened to deny the long-anticipated agreement in the case of House v. NCAA.

That agreement would allow revenue sharing and a whole host of other monumental changes to sweep across college athletics.

Her concern stems from the current walk-on athletes that would be in danger of immediately losing their spot if roster limits went into effect as currently written.

Wilken does not have the power to strike out specific portions of the settlement, she only has the binary option of approving or denying.

The domino effect is that revenue sharing, which hinges on approval on Wilken is held up.

Revenue sharing has long been considered close to a done deal by many, is suddenly thrown into question at least for the 2025-26 academic year.

While legal scholars on this topic, including visiting sports professor at Harvard Michael McCann, still eventually expect some kind of settlement to be approved, the timeline is now in limbo.

Odds the House settlement isn't approved in time for the 2025-26 academic year just went up. All these leaders of colleges and conferences assuming it's a done deal and relying on that in making athletics decisions should be a little bit worried tonight.

— Michael McCann (@McCannSportsLaw) April 24, 2025

"We felt like it might get done on [April] 7th," Pittman said. "Then we felt like it might get done by tomorrow, and as we all know, that’s been delayed a couple of weeks now. So we’re operating on what the SEC tells us."

There are more questions than answers about how rosters are going to look come 2026, the earliest Iamaleava was going to make an impact anyway.

The changes that are coming [or not coming] to college football have impact for the Razorbacks that transcend a player that hasn't played a snap of actual college football yet.

"Well every day that something comes up. [we get briefed]," Pittman said. We’re all on a head coaches’ thread and there’s speculation all the time and then half of it’s right and half of it’s not right.

"When are we going to get the finality of the settlement and all that. Are we going to get grandfathered? Our league has said we’re going to have 105 in it and 85 scholarships, so that’s what we’ve been working around for that.

"We get briefed every time something happens and probably briefed more than we think."

Until the gavel meets the sound block in a courtroom nearly 2,000 miles away from Fayetteville, Pittman and the rest of college football are at the mercy of a judge.

"We’ll adjust when it’s time to adjust," Pittman said.