Nico Show opens to rave reviews for Tennessee football. He was as good as billed vs Iowa.

Individual players don’t usually transcend college football games, especially at a place where winning and losing matters as much as it does at Tennessee. But the Citrus Bowl will be remembered as the Nico Bowl.

Monday’s bowl matchup with Iowa merely marked the end of the 2023 season. The starting debut of UT five-star freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava was about the 2024 season and beyond.

Tennessee won the game, 35-0. Iamaleava won the day.

He was as good as billed. And that’s saying something.

Iamaleava has been making headlines since he first committed to UT. His supposed multimillion-dollar NIL deal made him a poster player for the NIL era.

But the first day of 2024 wasn’t about money ball. It was about playing ball.

And Iamaleava can play. That shouldn’t qualify as shocking news to anyone who had seen his cameo appearances during the regular season. You didn’t need to be an NFL scout to surmise he has a strong arm, quick release, and way more agility than you would expect from a 6-foot-6 quarterback.

The more you saw of Iamaleava against the Hawkeyes top-10 defense the more you might have wondered why coach Josh Heupel played him so sparingly during the regular season.

Fans can’t do anything about that now. They can only look ahead to what the offense could become with a full season of Iamaleava in 2024.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Iamaleava didn’t produce dazzling passing stats. He completed 12 of 19 passes for 151 yards and a touchdown. But he made an “A” on the eye test.

He never looked like a freshman making his first start. He looked composed and confident – even when his complementary cast was lacking.

UT’s first-quarter offense was fraught with mistakes.

Vols offensive linemen were flagged for back-to-back penalties on their first series. Receivers dropped a couple of easy-to-catch passes….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nico-show-opens-rave-reviews-213853324.html

Author : Knox News | The Knoxville News-Sentinel

Publish date : 2024-01-01 21:38:53

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