Tennessee fourth-year coach Josh Heupel isn’t one to hype up his players during preseason press conferences. He’ll say good things about them, sure. But his comments are usually very measured and conservative.
That’s what made it notable when Heupel set high expectations for Iamaleava entering his first season as Tennessee’s starting quarterback.
“He’s a young player. He is got one start underneath him,” Heupel said last week. “We expect him to play at a really high level right from the jump, but there’s going to be a growth in maturation for him as a player inside of what we’re doing as well.”
That outlook from Heupel has been consistent across Tennessee football players and coaches that have met with the media so far this fall camp.
Offensive coordinator Joey Halzle was even more bullish on Iamaleava entering his redshirt freshman season. It isn’t the natural talent, which made Iamaleava one of the top prep quarterbacks in the country, that excites Halzle but the growth he’s seen from him mentally from his first to second season inside the program.
“Just watching that kid in the spring scrimmages after he’d been here for two months and it’s like man this guy just gets it on the football side of the ball,” Halzle said. “Now, getting to take this whole offseason and really dive into the intricacies of understanding why are we calling certain things in certain situations? Why are we doing things a certain way? Why are we switching our protection?
“He is blossoming in that. I think we are going to see his play go to an even higher level, which is a scary thing to think about because just his natural ability to step on a football field and go play well is elite. Now, he’s got to go do it with live bullets for 17 straight games this year, but we’re really excited about where he’s at mentally in this process.”
Iamaleava has limited game experience but his maturity in his lone start was encouraging. The 6-foot-6 quarterback made impressive plays with his legs and arms but how he limited mistakes was even more impressive. Facing a bad Iowa offense, Tennessee needed to limit offensive mistakes in the game.
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He did just that, not only avoiding turning the ball over but also not putting the ball in harm’s way in the 35-0 victory.
“I thought during the bowl game, for him to take it from the practice field to the game, for the game really to slow down for him during the course of the game, he had great command during that,” Heupel said. “I think that speaks volume about him as a player and understanding what we’re doing. He’s been very urgent, worked hard, understanding what we’re doing offensively, defensive schemes, the ability to control everything from the run game to protections to checks that we have inside of our offense.”
The other key for Iamaleava is leadership. This was a question about the former five-star quarterback given the reported NIL deal and circumstances surrounding his recruitment. But Iamaleava has been anything but a diva, winning over his teammates with his humility and quiet confidence.
“A guy that came in here wanted to earn it, went to work every single day, has developed great relationships with guys (not only) on his side of the ball, but on the other side of the ball as well,” Heupel said. “And we’ll continue to grow as a leader. But how he works, how he competes coming out and earning it, his consistency in who he is every day inside the building has been a huge part of the trust, love, and belief that our players have in him.”
“(Iamaleava) is so mature for his age,” Tennessee center Cooper Mays said. “He’s a younger guy, but he doesn’t act like that. Like you said, I have had guys that weren’t just mature, they were 24 or 25 years old, like older guys. It’s been a little bit of an adjustment. Just got to be really communicative. Kind of the whole offense in general, but especially with me and the quarterback, you have to talk a lot and kind of pick each other’s brain. He tries to see how I’m seeing things and I’m trying to see how he sees things.
Leadership gets significantly harder when adversity comes during games or in the middle of the season but Tennessee is happy with what they’ve seen from its young quarterback this offseason. They’re not tempering his expectations entering the season.
