Tennessee Vols fans hilariously try to pronounce Nico Iamaleava's last name
The Citrus Bowl between the Tennessee Vols and the Iowa Hawkeyes on New Year's Day will mark the official beginning of the Nico Iamaleava era for UT football. Iamaleava, a true freshman quarterback, is a former five-star recruit who was rated as the No. 1 overall player in the 2023 class. As the Nico era […]
The Citrus Bowl between the Tennessee Vols and the Iowa Hawkeyes on New Year's Day will mark the official beginning of the Nico Iamaleava era for UT football.
Iamaleava, a true freshman quarterback, is a former five-star recruit who was rated as the No. 1 overall player in the 2023 class.
As the Nico era gets underway, it appears that some Vols fans need some help with learning how to correctly pronounce the California native's last name.
The Vol Club shared a video this week of Tennessee fans attempting to pronounce Nico's last name. And some of their attempts were absolutely hilarious (and nowhere close to being correct).
How to correctly pronounce Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava's last name
Nico's older brother hits on the correct pronunciation at the end of the video above, but just in case you didn't make it that far, here's the correct pronunciation from Nico himself.
That's ee-ah-MAH-LAY-ah-va in case you need to put a note in your cell phone.
Hopefully Vols fans can get the pronunciation down so there isn't a repeat of multiple years of mispronouncing former Vol defensive back Alontae Taylor's first name or former UT quarterback Jarrett Guarantano's last name.
Tennessee and Iowa kick off at 1:00 PM ET on New Year's Day. Dave Fleming (play-by-play), Brock Osweiler (analyst) and Kayla Burton (sideline), the announcers for the Citrus Bowl, will probably want to rehearse the pronunciation of Nico's last name a few times before they go on air on Monday.
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Alontae Taylor played for the Tennessee Vols for four seasons. And fans said his name wrong for the entire four years. Now, in defense of the fans, it wasn't known that Taylor's name was being said wrong until Friday. Taylor, who was drafted by the New Orleans Saints, spoke to reporters during training camp on […]
