How Nico Iamaleava has reenergized bowl season for Tennessee

Tennessee made a big splash on the recruiting trail a year ago by landing five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava. Throughout his freshman season, though, he found himself mostly on the sidelines while Joe Milton served as the Vols’ starting quarterback.

When Tennessee plays in the Citrus Bowl on Monday, though, it will officially be Nico Time as Iamaleava gets the start under center. Milton is opting out of the game, which means Vol fans will get their first look at their quarterback of the future as a starter.

In fact, according to VolQuest’s Austin Price, it adds a new level of juice to the game.

“It’s changed the landscape of this bowl game dramatically,” Price told Andy Staples on Andy Staples On3. “Not to say people weren’t going to be excited to watch Tennessee play one more football game, but it just adds a level of excitement. especially when they’re playing Iowa, which plays such a kind of boring, mundane brand of football. Now, you kind of have this excitement. … Nico provides kind of a jolt to the arm for Tennessee fans.

“I had multiple Tennessee fans text me as the word started to leak out right around Christmas and then into Wednesday, and they said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be in Vero Beach with my family. I’m coming over now. We’re getting tickets. We weren’t going to come, we’re now coming.’ I’m not saying there’s gonna be 15,000 extra Tennessee fans, but I do think you’ll have a trickle-down effect of there’ll be a little more orange there than was going to be there because of Nico starting.”

Nico Iamaleava was the top quarterback from the 2023 recruiting cycle in the On300 Rankings a year ago. He also came in as the No. 6 overall recruit, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. During his freshman season, Iamaleava appeared in four games, throwing for 163 yards and a touchdown in that time.

That was just a taste of what Tennessee fans have been waiting for since 2021, when Iamaleava took his first visit to Rocky Top. Each time he took the field, he took a leap forward, Price said. But that also adds to the hype around the bowl game, and the reactions will be aplenty regardless of how Iamaleava looks against a tough Iowa defense.

That’s why he compared it to the debut of another Tennessee icon.

“The overreactions to Monday will be will be will be drastic,” Price said. “If he plays well, the Heisman campaign is going to be in full effect for next year. If he plays poorly, everybody’s gonna go, ‘I mean, we give him the big NIL money for that? Are you kidding me?’ I think no matter what happens, good or bad, I think you’ve got to understand, Peyton Manning took the field against a Washington State team in 1994 — not saying that this kid’s gonna be Peyton Manning. I’m just saying that the level of interest in Peyton and the level of interest in Nico was similar.

“Peyton completed seven passes for 79 yards in 10-9 win over the Cougars. Both teams, Iowa and Washington State, were really good on defense. … So just kind of let it play out and enjoy Monday if you’re a Tennessee fan, because they’ve been clamoring for this, they’ve been begging for it. They’ve got it. You got Nico. It’s kind of like when he committed. You chanted my name, you asked for me, you got me. Enjoy it.”

Nico Iamaleava’s recruitment was also a landmark one from the NIL perspective. He signed a deal with Spyre Sports Group that could net him more than $8 million over three years, as The Athletic since reported, and that became one of On3’s most influential NIL deals of 2022.

That’s a lot to live up to considering Iamaleava hadn’t yet played a college snap. He said at the time, though, he wasn’t worried about it. As he gets ready for his first start, Price said that remains the case.

“I don’t think he even thinks about the NIL side,” Price said. “I think that a lot of that is stuff handled by people around him, I don’t think he thinks about those type things. And he was in Knoxville so much for visits and people just gravitated towards him like they would see him out in Market Square on Gay Street or wherever, and they just gravitate towards him. And all of a sudden, he’s taking pictures of all these little kids and they’ve lined up around the corner. It’s like the [scene] in the movie ‘The Santa Clause’ when they’re walking through the park and all these kids start just sitting on Tim Allen’s lap. People just gravitate towards him.

“I think that he can handle it. I don’t think he really thinks about that type of stuff. You talk about the pressure, it’s on him, but I don’t think he really feels it, realizes it. I think he just kind of is Nico. I think that that’s probably one of his more endearing qualities.”