Josh Heupel shares how Nico Iamaleava's bowl performance sparks future for Tennessee

For the second straight season Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel was able to lead the Volunteers to a bowl victory, defeating Iowa 35-0 in the Citrus Bowl on Monday. But the game also represented the first career start for true freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who impressed in his debut.

Iamaleava looked more like a veteran than a rookie in Tennessee’s bowl win over the No. 17 ranked Hawkeyes, which led to Heupel being asked about the future of his young quarterback and the offense as a whole with Iamaleava under center.

“I believe he’s gonna be a great, dynamic playmaker and know that,” Heupel said. “I thought he handled himself really composed all day long. Subtle things of breaking the huddle, communication inside of the huddle, controlling the run game, his eyes were in the right place. Great to see a young guy go out and and perform in that way in his first career start.”

Iamaleava was a five-star high school prospect out of Long Beach, California, ranked the No. 3 quarterback in the nation for the 2023 class according to On3’s Industry Ranking. He surely lived up to that ranking in his first career start, throwing for one touchdown and rushing for three scores on Monday. But Heupel believes there’s still plenty of room for growth in his game moving forward.

“There’s a lot of things Nico can continue to grow and will continue to grow in. The challenge early in the football game was the 10 other guys playing at a really high level too, I didn’t think we played as well as we were capable at times around him. But we got a great confidence in him and in that quarterback room,” Heupel explained.

Tennessee had various players step up in increased roles during their Citrus Bowl performance, but Iamaleava playing efficiently at a high level is a promising sign for the Volunteers as they head into their fourth season under Heupel next year.

“We’ve got great confidence in our young players, a lot of guys got an opportunity to play a lot more football today than they had and a lot of them played extremely well,” Heupel said. “But it also showed some things where they got an opportunity to grow and how those things impact how the game unfolds and I’m really excited about who’s in that locker room, who’s coming back, and where we have an opportunity to go in ’24.”