Nico Iamaleava’s maturation will flourish under McKenzie Milton, Tennessee staff

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava has another sounding board to talk with for this upcoming season in new offensive analyst McKenzie Milton. The move could end up being a major move in the development of Iamaleava’s career, On3’s JD PicKell believes.

While it wasn’t the first thing he discussed when he made the move, PicKell made it clear that he thinks Milton’s addition to the staff is a shrewd decision by Volunteers head coach Josh Heupel.

“When you look at the maturation of a young quarterback, coaching is just so crucial,” PicKell said. “And assuming Nico Iamaleaca is going to be your backup quarterback for Tennessee he’s going to get the same rep count as Joe Milton in practice, but I don’t know that he’ll get the same coaching. Maybe he will. I’m not implying he will or he will. I’m just saying you’re the number two quarterback it would make sense for the staff to give a little bit more attention to the number one quarterback. So Mackenzie Milton now if I’m Josh Heupel, I’m saying McKenzie, your job is to watch and help nurture the maturation of our stud quarterback that is the future of this whole program.”

Milton played for Heupel in his system at UCF and was extremely successful in it. He earned his second AAC Offensive Player of the Year award in Heupel’s first season as the coach of the Knights.

This will be Milton’s first coaching job.

“I think that would be just a perfect role for someone like McKenzie Milton to play for someone like Nico Iamaleava,” PicKell said. “It just makes all the sense in the world. Coaching, watching through the tape and knowing what you’re looking at too. It’s not like they just grabbed some quarterback from another system or someone who had a good playing career but he’s figuring out Tennessee and the system. Tthat’s not McKenzie Milton. McKenzie Milton was very successful in this system, being able to now pour into someone like Nico Iamaleava at this stage in his career, I think that’s crucial and we could see a tremendous ripple effect from that. The reason why I say that is we’ve all had those teachers that just make things make sense to us. I think especially grade school where you weren’t traveling from class to class for different subjects, where you just had one teacher. There were some teachers that were able to put things in a messaging that made more sense to you.”

There is a lot of pressure that will be placed upon Iamaleava over the coming years, even if he doesn’t start at all as a true freshman. That’s the territory that comes with being one of the most hyped Volunteers recruits in recent memory — and with NIL expectations to boot too.

Doing everything you can to make a player like that succeed is crucial.

“I want to be extremely clear, I think Josh Heupel has one of the best staffs in the country,” said. “I think Josh Heupel is one of the best coaches in the country. I have no reservations about him being able to coach Nico Iamaleava. No questions about it. But to have another voice in there, to have someone to is closer to his playing days, I think it makes a lot of sense.”