Josh Heupel gives his expanded thoughts on Nico Iamaleava after the completion of Tennessee's spring practices
The Tennessee Vols will hand the offense over to redshirt senior quarterback Joe Milton in 2023. And the Vols are expecting Milton to help lead the team to a College Football Playoff appearance. Waiting behind Milton is true freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava, a five-star phenom who has seemingly limitless potential. The majority of the Tennessee […]
The Tennessee Vols will hand the offense over to redshirt senior quarterback Joe Milton in 2023.
And the Vols are expecting Milton to help lead the team to a College Football Playoff appearance.
Waiting behind Milton is true freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava, a five-star phenom who has seemingly limitless potential.
The majority of the Tennessee fan base seems to be behind Milton as the starter. I've yet to come across anyone who thinks Iamaleava should get a serious look as the starting quarterback at the beginning of the 2023 season. Iamaleava has Heisman Trophy potential, but he needs to develop in Josh Heupel's system before he's counted on to take over the offense. Throwing him out there too soon would be unfair to the young California native.
But make no mistake — Heupel is extremely excited about Nico's potential. We've heard Heupel praise Iamaleava throughout the spring. And now that spring practice is over for the Vols, Heupel's had time to reflect on Iamaleava's first couple of months at Tennessee. And the UT head coach saw a lot of good things from Nico this spring.
"The first thing you see is his humility, his groundedness in the way that he approaches coming into the building, how much [he cares] — he wants to be great," said Heupel on Wednesday during an appearance on 104.5 The Zone's 3HL. "He understands that there's a process to that. He's willing to invest in it every day — in the meeting room, on the grass."
"Once we got on the field with him, his ability to handle a positive play, his ability to handle a negative one and bounce back from it," continued Heupel. "His worst day was followed by one of his best days. That's a hard thing to do. I wasn't able to do that all the time when I was 18 years old. So he's got all the raw tools, physical skill set that we thought. He understands, feels his body extremely well. When you talk to him about changing something, he's able to incorporate that into his game. If he doesn't right away, he can feel it. He's got a tremendous ceiling. As talented and as good [of a] work ethic as any young guy I've been around."
The part about the way Nico takes coaching and is able to apply it should be extremely exciting for Tennessee fans. That's a tough thing to do at any level. But the fact that Nico can do it when he's technically supposed to still be a high school student is very encouraging. It shows that he understands football at a high level and he's not thriving just because of his natural talent (those are the players that end up being busts). Instead, Iamaleava is always looking to improve and he's willing to listen to the folks around him — he's not a player that thinks he already has it all figured out.
The physical abilities are there and the mental side is there, too. Nico has all the ingredients to be a superstar and it's obvious that Heupel sees that potential in the highly touted quarterback.
