‘I would want to blow up for him’ – Nico Iamaleava gets candid about Joe Milton at Tennessee
Quarterbacks Nico Iamaleava and Joe Milton were teammates with the Tennessee Vols in 2023.
UCLA Bruins quarterback Nico Iamaleava spent the first two seasons of his college career with the Tennessee Vols.
Iamaleava didn’t play much during his true freshman season in 2023, as Joe Milton served as Tennessee’s starter.
But while Iamaleava didn’t see much action on the field as a true freshman, he still learned plenty while playing behind Milton.
Specifically, Iamaleava learned from Milton how to have a positive demeanor and next play mentality — even when teammates made mistakes.
“As the leader of the team, you never want to let the guys see you down or any type of bad mood or blaming guys for a pick,” said Iamaleava to Yogi Roth. “I think it all comes with taking responsibility and moving on and having that next play mentality. And I learned that really from you know my vet Joe Milton when he was the starter at Tennessee and I was under him.
“Whether it was his fault or whether it was the lineman’s fault — I think just seeing Joe and how he always stayed positive. Even though I would want to blow up for him, I’m like, ‘Damn, how did he drop that? And it turned into a pick.’ I think just watching him my whole first year and seeing how he led, I think that that played a huge role for me. So whenever stuff doesn’t go my way, I really just try to stay positive, and that comes with a lot of self-talk. And you’ve really got to practice that self-talk because the self-talk could be negative thoughts. It could be negative talking and you don’t want that. You never want that negative talk in your system. So I think a lot of positive self-talk has helped me.”
That’s certainly the mindset that any quarterback has to have to be successful. It always has to be a next play mentality. If a quarterback is constantly blaming those around him, then those players probably won’t be willing to go to war for the quarterback. Mistakes happen. Learn from them and move to the next play. It sounds easy, but it’s one of the toughest things for some young players to learn.
Iamaleava was fortunate to have a good mentor at Tennessee in Milton.
