Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava learned leadership from Joe Milton, Hendon Hooker

Quarterback Nico Iamaleava now runs the show at Tennessee, and there are plenty of reasons the Volunteers are excited about the redshirt freshman

Not only does he have incredible dual-threat talent and may be one of the best overall athletes in the nation, but the Vols feel they have quite the leader on their hands.

"The thing that I loved about Nico is when he came into the building, he wanted to earn the respect of his teammates and you do that through your actions, not your words," head coach Josh Heupel had said of his young quarterback earlier this month .

It's rare for a young player to take a leadership role so early in their college football careers, but Iamaleava recently revealed that he learned a lot from the quarterbacks ahead of him. He redshirted behind Joe Milton last season, and while participating in bowl prep for the 2022 Orange Bowl, he also got a chance to learn from Hendon Hooker. Both are now in the NFL.

“I enjoyed learning from Joe and this whole team — just how to be leader. It was good for me to see. When you’ve got a guy like Joe in front of you, I feel like that’s a great guy to learn from. You know, soak up as much as you can soak up. I feel like I did that last year," Iamaleava recently said, per On3's Sam Gillenwater . “I think that was always my vision. You know, come in early, learn from a guy like Joe, learn from Hendon when he was still here during that bowl prep. I think it was good for me too. It was really, you know, what I envisioned — sit the first year, soak up as much as I can soak up, and then year two was go-time for me.”

Year two may be go-time, but Iamaleava gave Vols fans a taste of what he could bring to the table in his first start, an impressive Citrus Bowl win over a strong Iowa defense.

He notched four total touchdowns against Iowa, three of which came on the ground.