Josh Heupel Talks Nico Iamaleava's Performance in Second Scrimmage for Tennessee

Tennessee's Nico Iamaleava (8) during Tennessee football's fall practice, in Knoxville, Tenn., Saturday, August 3, 2024. | Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Tennessee Volunteers had their second and likely final scrimmage in the midst of fall camp in their lead up to the 2024 season opener against UT-Chattanooga on August 31st. The Vols are breaking in a new starting quarterback this season, as five-star Nico Iamaleava is set to take the reigns for this Heupel led offense that's finished inside the top-10 in scoring two out of the last three years, including leading the nation in points per in 2022.

Josh Heuepel is aware of what explosive and consistently efficient offenses look like, especially at the quarterback position. He was asked after the second scrimmage what he though of Nico's performance.

“For all of your quarterbacks, the green dot communication is different. Situational football, being able to reset and play the play, we try to simulate a lot of those situations during the course of practice, but there’s nothing like scrimmage to get you as close as you can be to what game day is going to be like. In general I thought the quarterbacks handled themselves really well here, and just again – situational football being backed up, coming off the goal line – your thought processes, all those things."

It appears as the start of the season approaches, Heupel believes Nico has a strong grasp of what they are doing offensively:
“Nico’s got really good command of what we’re doing offensively. We’ve seen that throughout this offseason, but really in his development from last fall, too. He’s got great comfort. There’s a lot that goes into our quarterback play from protection. It could be changing the protection. In our run game, there’s a lot of things that go into it. That’s RPO tags, it’s loaded box, it’s all those things. So he’s got great command of what we’re doing.

Other Tennessee News:

• Tony Vitello Turnaround Nothing Short of Brilliant for Tennessee Baseball
• Jaylen Williams Cuts Recruitment to Four Schools
• Tennessee Vols Football Could Make Playoff According to CFB Data Model

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