I will relay this, but take with a grain of salt as I am, ADMITTEDLY, just a normal dude from Knoxville, born and raised.
I work with a couple of guys who are very tight with some bigger name donors to the University who are big time business names in town. They relayed information to my colleague a couple of days ago that Miami did INFORMALLY reach out via “back channels” to Nico via the Mauigoa family. It was apparently more of a Mauigoa family reaching out to the Iamaleava family to express “hey it would be awesome to have our kids play together and Francis could be Nico’s blindside”. It was not official Miami officials or coaches but there was dialogue.
I know nothing other than that but take it with a grain as I’m once removed from actual source but I did read the text messages on the phone between colleague and big name donor