Why, before the 2024 season, Nico Iamaleava might become a folk hero in Tennessee football | Adams
Despite only starting one collegiate football game, Nico Iamealeva is undoubtedly more well-known than most college quarterbacks who have played a whole season. Even though his last name is unpronounceable, fans are aware of it.
How were they not able to?
Consider the amount of publicity surrounding the purported multi-million dollar NIL contract he inked with Tennessee’s sports collective prior to joining the Vols. He is currently the focus of an inquiry into claims that the Vols may have broken NCAA regulations in their chase of the five-star quarterback from California.
Iamaleava played sparingly as a freshman before leading the Vols to win against Iowa in the Citrus Bowl, in between rumors of a NIL and an NCAA bid. If the NCAA continues to attempt to enforce a rule that cannot withstand a court of law, more attention may be forthcoming.
You already know that pressure follows all of that publicity. That’s advantageous for Tennessee and Iamaleava. As pressure increases, your ability to handle it improves too.
An NCAA initial and a NIL are not necessary for a quarterback to experience pressure. That goes along with the job, which is the hardest in sports to play—despite what you might not think from watching Patrick Mahomes run and pass his way through a Super Bowl.
Even while I believe Iamaleava has a lot of potential, I wouldn’t put him in the same category as a quarterback who, at just thirty, is already being discussed among the best in the game.
Iamaleava, however, has some of Mahomes’s talents, even though we didn’t see much of them in 2023 when he was given a redshirt. Iamaleava has remarkable football instincts along with a strong arm. Furthermore, he showed himself to be far more agile than one might anticipate for a 6-foot-6 person.
He could be six foot six. However, the standards are 10–6.
Iamaleava won’t be deterred by performance pressure, in my opinion. Nothing in the film of Iowa vs. Tennessee suggested that Iamaleava was uneasy during his maiden start.
In the 35-0 victory over UT, he ran for three touchdowns and completed 12 of 19 throws for 151 yards. However, such numbers didn’t reflect his potential.
He had the goal-line sense of an experienced running back when he carried the ball. In addition, he produced enough above-average throws to make Tennessee supporters wish they could have skipped ahead to the 2024 campaign and immediately awarded himself the Citrus Bowl MVP title.
It will take months for them to get it. They will also need to sort through all of the rumors about Iamleava’s NIL payout and the potential for an NCAA retribution attempt due to UT’s easy victory in their most recent confrontation with the NCAA.
Nevertheless, despite all the conjecture and conspiracy theories, we do know that the court supports student athletes who make money off of their name, likeness, and image. Any NCAA regulation that states differently will eventually be broken.
Iamaleava might become a folk hero in Tennessee and a household name in college football in the interim.
