Nico Iamaleava's frame, skillset make him unique, Josh Heupel believes

The Tennessee Volunteers and head coach Josh Heupel will be turning to the highly-touted and young quarterback Nico Iamaleava to lead the offense in 2024.

Heupel is a coach that has found plenty of success in developing quarterbacks. However, as he explained during the SEC spring meetings, he doesn’t think he’s had one quite like Iamaleava before, and that’s what makes him so unique.

“He’s unique in his frame and skillset,” Josh Heupel said. “His ability to move, extend, make plays off schedule, thrown from different arm angles. His experience in the bowl game. He played extremely well, but I think it was a huge part of his urgency since he got back into the building in January. Continued to grow, change his frame, add muscle to it. Had a great spring.”

Nico Iamaleava came to the Tennessee Volunteers as a five-star recruit in the Class of 2023, according to the On3 Industry Ranking. He was the third-ranked quarterback in the class and the sixth-ranked player overall. With that came massive expectations for Iamaleava.

In 2023, Nico Iamaleava was primarily the backup at Tennessee, learning from the veteran starter Joe Milton. However, he did start the Citrus Bowl and played well to beat Iowa. For the season, Iamaleava played in five games and completed 28 of 45 pass attempts for 314 yards and two touchdowns. He also rushed for 71 yards and three touchdowns.

“As a young guy with how high-profile he was in recruiting, his ability to enter into our building, be one of the guys, garner respect from the guys around him, be the magnet, draw people to him,” Heupel said. “He’s really unique and really excited about what he’s done up to this point. Need to go have a great summer for him to play the way we need him to in the fall.”

Tennessee fans will get their next look at Nico Iamaleava on August 31st when the Volunteers open their season against Chattanooga.

Greg McElroy explains how Nico Iamaleava could help Tennessee ‘challenge’ at top of SEC

Going into the 2024 season, Tennessee is expected to be good but there are still programs like Georgia and Texas that most expect to finish ahead of the Volunteers. However, analyst Greg McElroy thinks that Nico Iamaleava could help Tennessee compete.

“You could almost pin all of Tennessee’s inconsistencies on the passing game. So with a slightly improved passer – assuming Nico Iamaleava is – and a running game that’s going to be continued to be dynamic, and a defense that has shown to be really solid, Tennessee could definitely challenge at the top of the league. And yet, nobody really has them in that discussion right now. I think most people would have Tennessee fifth in the SEC, maybe sixth coming into the season, depending on how you want to shake things out between Texas, Bama, Georgia, LSU, Missouri, Ole Miss, and Tennessee. Those are probably your top seven,” McElroy said.

“Tennessee, I feel like, is way on down the list as far as the amount of coverage they’re getting this offseason, and maybe that’s good for them because they did not handle the expectations as well last year as one would have liked.”