Nico Iamaleava evaluates his play in spring game, nerves before first snap at Tennessee

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava played his first live and public snaps as a Volunteer quarterback this Saturday at the Orange & White Game.

But the former highly-touted recruit said after the game there wasn’t much nerves running out into Neyland Stadium. The one moment of jitters it sounds like came not from nerves but from wanting into do something right on a specific play.

“No, not nervous,” Iamaleava said. “I think for me at the end of the day it’s just football. I play to have fun. It was just because I missed that play earlier in spring practice this week so I was I was like, I’m not messing this up again.”

He was the No. 6 overall recruit and No. 3 quarterback in the 2023 On3 Industry Ranking. The On3 Industry is a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four major recruiting media services. The On3 Industry Ranking is the most advanced, complete and unbiased rating and ranking measurement in the industry. In the 2023 On300 ranking, Iamaleava ranked as the No. 1 recruit in the entire country.

Iamaleava said his performance in his first spring game was good but could have been better.

“I played okay,” Iamaleava said. “I thought we could have scored more when we got down to the Red Zone. Finish drives off more. But we’re working. We will get to that point where it’s green when we get down in the red zone. But I thought overall as an offense as we did okay.”

His final stats for the game were 8-of-16 passing for 112 yards.

Volunteers head coach Josh Heupel was proud of the work Iamaleava and Joe Milton — who was 9-for-13 with 79 passing yards and a passing touchdown — did at the quarterback position during the game.

But he also added that there are still improvements and skill developments to be made.

“It’s not real football, at the end of the day,” Heupel said. “For the quarterbacks today, I thought there was a lot of game management that was really good. All in all, their eyes, decision-making — pretty sound. There’s some things accuracy-wise that we got to continue to get better. There’s some things in situational football that you can’t do that they’ll learn from. That group has been really good with the way they compete and help each other in the meeting room, out on the grass.”