Josh Heupel: Nico Iamaleava is hyper focused on becoming his best

The Nico Iamaleava era is upon us at Tennessee as he prepares to take over the reins of head coach Josh Heupel’s offense. But first, he must get through the Volunteers’ spring ball practices.

Tennessee’s first official spring practice is scheduled for Mar. 20, which will give fans their first glimpse at their young star quarterback commanding the offense since he led the team to a Cheez-It Citrus bowl win vs Iowa to start the new year.

And if you think Heupel isn’t excited to see how Iamaleava has grown during winter workouts, you are mistaken. Recently, the Tennessee headman chatted with On3’s J.D. PicKell on The Hard Count. And Heupel couldn’t stop the compliments from flowing once he got started on Iamaleava.

“We’ll continue to evolve with Nico and try to put him in the position to be his best,” opened Heupel when asked about how the offense will continue to grow with Iamaleava. “I’m real excited to get on the grass with him this spring. He had most of the bowl prep where he was the guy; he prepared for the Citrus Bowl.

“I’ve loved from the day that he got here just his focus in trying to grow and become his best — fundamentally continuing to grow [in] balance and footwork inside of the pocket, which leads to accuracy. His continued growth in understanding defensive ID, recognition, pre-snap reads, and post-snap rotations.”

The high praise from Heupel didn’t stop there for his five-star recruit out of the 2023 recruiting class.

“He’s very gifted as far as arm talent [and] continuing to become more accurate inside of the pocket,” Heupel gushed. “As a young player, he’s hyper-focused on growing as a player and becoming his best. He’s going to have to continue to grow into a leadership role when you’re playing that position; that’s extremely important.”

According to On3’s recruiting rankings, Nico Iamaleava was the top prospect in his class over the likes of Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning. The Long Beach, CA native has some serious athleticism, considering that as a high school freshman, he was already receiving scholarship offers for volleyball.

Despite entering his second collegiate season, Iamaleava is likely to have a significant amount of pressure on his shoulders, given the university he plays for, his recruiting status, and the accomplishments that his predecessors have achieved. But even with all that, Heupel is not concerned about how his young quarterback will handle the pressure that will come with the Volunteers 2024 campaign. As he sees it, it is nothing new for Iamaleava, who has been dealing with a symphony of outside expectations for quite some time.

“Yeah, that’s been a part of his life for a really long time,” he told PicKell. “The recruiting process started early. He’s had a lot of attention on him throughout that process, and then certainly once he’s gotten here, too. There’s high expectations outside of the building. I think it’s important for me, our staff, our players, everybody, and certainly Nico, too, that you stay focused on your expectations. And then you go work extremely hard to put yourself in a position to be your best.”

In Tennessee’s bowl game vs. Iowa, Iamaleava faced significant pressure in his first career start, looked it in its face, and delivered. The Volunteers offensive line struggled to keep the Hawkeyes defense out of the backfield, allowing six sacks. However, Iamaleava was able to complete 12-19 pass attempts for 151 passing yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions. Still, the most impressive part of this performance had to be his 15 carries for 27 yards with three rushing touchdowns, earning him Citrus Bowl offensive MVP honors as Tennessee cruised to a 35-0 victory.

“He’s very calm,” Heupel noted. “He never gets too high too low; he’s got a great work ethic inside of the building. He’s extremely consistent in that [and] because of that, his talent, his impact on his teammates, our players have a great trust and belief in him as a player. And as he continues to grow in that leadership role, I do believe he’s going to be somebody that those guys rally around. If he continues to attack every single day the way that he has during this beginning part of our offseason, we’ll be really excited about getting on the field with him.”