As UCLA players and coaches milled about on the field a half hour before the team’s spring showcase at the Rose Bowl, the present met the future.
Nico Iamaleava and his younger brother, Madden, emerged from a tunnel in one corner of the end zone.
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The transfers who could immediately become the team’s top two quarterbacks once they enroll this summer exchanged hugs with their new coaches Saturday afternoon before watching the final practice of spring.
“It just feels good because you know you’re around somebody that you can tell he has presence,” UCLA coach DeShaun Foster said of visiting with Nico Iamaleava, the newcomer from Tennessee. “He kind of commands attention being [6 feet 6], he’s a huge guy and he’s not somebody that’s just seeking that attention but he just kind of has a poise to him that … it’s just comforting.”
Read more: Five takeaways as UCLA heads into homestretch of spring football practice
Nico Iamaleava brings some much needed cachet to the Bruins after leading the Volunteers to the College Football Playoff in his redshirt freshman season. Madden is returning after executing a double flip — the Long Beach Poly High graduate switched his allegiance from UCLA to Arkansas on signing day, only to change it back recently through the transfer portal. Foster cannot comment on the younger Iamaleava until he’s officially signed with the team, which is considered a formality.
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Madden could be his brother’s top backup next season, though he might be pushed by Luke Duncan considering the way Duncan continued to show mastery of the offense as part of a group of quarterbacks that thinned from seven at the start of spring to four by the end.
“Each day, you could tell he was getting better, getting more comfortable,” Foster said of Duncan. “There was a lot of…
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Publish date : 2025-05-04 02:07:00
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