Nico Iamaleava plans to return to UCLA instead of entering the 2027 NFL Draft, taking another quarterback out of a thin class

UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava plans to return to the Bruins next season rather than enter the 2027 NFL Draft, his representatives said Thursday night, three weeks after he tore his ACL in the first half of UCLA’s 17-15 win at Oregon on October 10.

The decision takes another name out of a quarterback class that was already short on healthy, proven options. Matt Zenitz noted that Iamaleava had been emerging as a possibility to go in the first three rounds of the 2027 draft before the injury.

A season cut short

Iamaleava had led UCLA to a 5-0 start before he was hurt. In five games he completed 62.1 percent of his passes for 982 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions, and ran for 144 yards and another score.

Hours before the plan became public, he wrote on Instagram: “I’m heartbroken the way my season ended. I’ve finally accepted that this year is really over for me. This wasn’t part of the plan, but I believe everything happens for a reason. I gave this game and my brothers everything I had and I’ll continue to lean on God and trust His plan. I’ll be back.”

The Bruins have not missed a beat without him. Ty Dieffenbach, a transfer from Cal Poly, finished the Oregon game and has since beaten Wisconsin and Michigan State, throwing for 505 yards, two touchdowns and one interception across three games. UCLA is 7-0, 5-0 in the Big Ten and ranked seventh in the AP poll under first-year coach Bob Chesney.

That leaves an open question about 2027 in Westwood. Iamaleava is listed as a senior and would have one season left, and with Dieffenbach playing well, the starting job may not simply be waiting for him when he is cleared.

Why staying makes sense for his draft stock

Iamaleava has been on the NFL radar since he arrived at Tennessee as one of the top quarterback recruits in the 2023 class. He started for the Volunteers in 2024, moved to UCLA in 2025, and was draft-eligible last spring but returned to school after an uneven season under the previous staff. His best game for the Bruins came in October 2025, when he accounted for five touchdowns in an upset of seventh-ranked Penn State.

A torn ACL in October would have made the pre-draft process, from the combine to private workouts, difficult or impossible to complete before the April 29 start of the draft in Washington. Another season gives the 6-foot-5 passer time to rehab without rushing and a chance to show teams that his arm and mobility are back.

Where that leaves the 2027 quarterback class

Iamaleava was not in Charlie Campbell’s top 75 prospects, and he was mentioned in Troy Finnegan’s latest quarterback rankings only among the quarterbacks who missed the cut because of injury or uneven play. The bigger effect is on the class as a whole: of the quarterbacks evaluators were tracking in August, Oregon’s Dante Moore is done for the season with a concussion and has not announced a decision, Arch Manning has struggled at Texas, and now Iamaleava is staying in school.

Here is where the leading names stand on Campbell’s October 28 board:

The thinner the class gets, the more weight falls on the quarterbacks who are healthy and playing well. Miami’s Darian Mensah and Notre Dame’s CJ Carr meet in South Bend on November 7, and Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker, the first quarterback in most current mock drafts, faces Texas Tech on November 14.