Joey Halzle explains why Nico Iamaleava is ahead of the curve already at Tennessee
The Tennessee Vols' plan at quarterback in 2023 is for Joe Milton to be the starter for the entire season before handing the offense over to Nico Iamaleava in 2024. Plans, however, don't always work out. At some point, there's a good chance that Tennessee will need their No. 2 quarterback to play because the […]
The Tennessee Vols' plan at quarterback in 2023 is for Joe Milton to be the starter for the entire season before handing the offense over to Nico Iamaleava in 2024.
Plans, however, don't always work out.
At some point, there's a good chance that Tennessee will need their No. 2 quarterback to play because the No. 1 quarterback can't play for whatever reason. That might be a spot start, it might be one series during a game, or it might be for half the season (if Milton suffers a long-term injury).
Right now, the Vols' No. 2 quarterback is Iamaleava because of Tayven Jackson's transfer to Indiana earlier this offseason (UT has only two scholarship quarterbacks at the moment).
Having a true freshman as the primary backup isn't necessarily ideal. But the good news for Tennessee is that it sounds like Nico is already "ahead of the curve" a bit in his development.
Vols offensive coordinator Joey Halzle spoke to reporters on Wednesday and he explained why Iamaleava will be ready to hit the ground running when spring practice gets underway next month.
"Just being able to sit in meetings, start learning the terminology, he (Nico) came back this January and he had transferred all of his notes over to his iPad that he had," said Halzle. "He knows a lot of the way we call stuff — the way we take our drops — all of that when he first got on campus. [It's] monumental because now you can start going into the details of actually playing the quarterback position. He has a good, firm understanding of what we're trying to accomplish when we're calling plays."
"Now he's young, he's got to learn," added Halzle. "But I thought it was great that he got to play football with us in December and then go play more football (in the Polynesian Bowl), then come back, so [he 's] not two months off [his] high school career the first time [he 's] picking up a ball again. I thought that was really beneficial for him. I love when guys when can go play in their all-star games. It's a cool experience for them. It's something that they've earned over their career so we would never take away someone's ability to go play in an all-star game."
Tennessee will obviously hope that Nico isn't needed in 2023 (outside of some garbage time action). But if the Vols find themselves in a situation where they need to rely on Iamaleava, it sounds like he'll be in a great position to help Tennessee find success.
Featured image via Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
