Vols insider's comments on Nico Iamaleava during fall camp should get Tennessee fans hyped for the 2024 season

It's Nico Iamaleava time for the Tennessee Vols this fall.

And it sounds like there's plenty of reason for Vols fans to be excited.

Iamaleava, a redshirt freshman quarterback who was rated as the No. 1 player in the 2023 recruiting class, will take over as Tennessee's starting quarterback in 2024 after sitting behind Joe Milton last season.

A year ago, with Milton under center, the Vols' offense wasn't quite as explosive as it was with Hendon Hooker at quarterback in 2021 and 2022.

Tennessee left some plays on the field last season, for a myriad of reasons that range from quarterback play to wide receiver play, but that's not expected to the case (for the most part) in 2024 with Iamaleava running the offense.

VolQuest's Austin Price joined 104.5 The Zone's R amon, Kayla, and Will on Tuesday and he offered some comments on Iamaleava's performance so far during fall camp that should get UT fans hyped for the upcoming season.

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"Based off the people I've spoken to, yes, he's been really, really good," said Price when asked about Iamaleava. "A couple of days ago, he led them right down the field on a couple of 70-yard drives. Now, one time, he did throw the back shoulder ball that got picked off by Jermod McCoy, you saw it on Twitter. Tennessee tweeted it out, they just didn't tweet who was throwing it, but that was Nico. But he literally made three or four plays on that drive, I was told, that were -- they just weren't able to make those types of plays a year ago. And so there's a lot of excitement out there about his ability to make plays, his ability to improvise, his ability to keep his eyes down the field when things break down and make plays on the run. They love the way he's throwing the football."

Here's the interception that Price referenced:

Even though that ball was intercepted, you can still tell that Iamaleava can really spin it (and that interception isn't a big deal -- practice is when you're supposed to push the limits of what you can do on the football field).

It seems pretty clear that this Tennessee offense is going to be a lot more dynamic in 2024 than it was in 2023. It'll be interesting to see if head coach Josh Heupel and offensive coordinator Joey Halzle "unleash" Iamaleava in game one against Chattanooga, or if they try to keep things semi-vanilla ahead of important September matchups against NC State and Oklahoma.

Either way, it sounds like Tennessee's offense with Iamaleava running the show has unlimited potential. It might be time to start believing that the Vols are legitimate championship contenders.

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