College football insider details the part of Nico Iamaleava's game that Tennessee Vols fans may see more of in 2025
According to On3's JD PicKell, there's one aspect of Tennessee Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava's game that fans may see more of in 2025. PicKell noted this week that he's hearing that the Volunteers are planning to utilize more designed runs with Iamaleava this upcoming season. "Some intel that I got around Nico, though, in terms […]
According to On3's JD PicKell, there's one aspect of Tennessee Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava's game that fans may see more of in 2025.
PicKell noted this week that he's hearing that the Volunteers are planning to utilize more designed runs with Iamaleava this upcoming season.
"Some intel that I got around Nico, though, in terms of how they could use him in 2025, I was told there may be a chance they do a little bit more quarterback design run game with him," said PicKell. "Which makes what I said a second ago about him adding some size more relevant. It (quarterback runs) helps him settle in and get into the flow of the game."
Iamaleava rushed for 358 yards and a three touchdowns in 2024 (27.5 yards per game). That's slightly behind the per game average we saw from Hendon Hooker during his two seasons as the starting quarterback at Tennessee (43.5 yards per game).
A 16 yard per game difference may not sound like a lot, but that 16 yards could potentially mean two or three additional first downs in a game, which means extra plays for the Volunteers' offense.
Something else that PicKell alluded to is that using Iamaleava early in the run game should help the California native settle into the flow of the game more quickly.
We learned last season, thanks to Adam Sparks of the Knoxville News Sentinel, that Iamaleava "settles in" to games more quickly once he takes a hit or two.
"I talked to Nico's high school coach last week," said Sparks last October. "And he brought up an interesting thing. He said that Nico loved to run over people in the open field. And his dad and his whole family — his dad was a coach at the time — early in a game, Nico would take off running, he loved to lower his shoulder and plow over a kid. And everybody in his family would flex and chest bump and they just loved that. Now obviously he doesn't need to be doing that at this level. But they said they learned that Nico plays far better after he [would do] that one time in a game.
"And so they would call a run play, like on the first drive of every game, because once Nico took some hard contact, his throws were better, he was more comfortable, everything was better after that."
Tennessee has to make sure they don't overdo it with Iamaleava in the run game — he's gotta stay healthy — but the added weight that the redshirt sophomore has put on this offseason should help him absorb some of those tough hits from SEC defenders.
