FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In a flash of deja vu, another Tennessee football game ended with its quarterback running out of bounds with triple zeros on the clock instead of taking a final shot to the end zone.
Three years after Joe Milton’s infamous trot out of bounds against Ole Miss, Nico Iamaleava’s first loss as Tennessee’s starting quarterback ended with an Arkansas defender pushing him out of bounds as the Razorbacks held on for a 19-14 victory over fourth-ranked Tennessee.
“It’s a full concept read,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said postgame. “He ended up scrambling off of it. End of the day, in that scenario, you got to get the ball up and give one of your guys an opportunity to go make a play.
“Nico, just like me, and just like our football team, wishes that we had played better. That situation, you can’t, keep the ball in your hands. You want to give somebody an opportunity to go make a play. He’s disappointed with it.”
Iamaleava also met with the media postgame and said that the ball was slipping as he neared the line of scrimmage which led to him tucking it and trying to make a play with his legs.
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“As I rolled out, man, I seen Tae (Dont’e Thornton Jr.), he was coming open,” Iamaleava said. “But if I threw that ball, it was going to be batted down right away, so I tried to let Chris Brazzell work a little bit. And he was covered at the time, and as soon as I was trying to let the ball go, I felt it slipping in my hand. I’ve got to do a better job at holding the ball.”
With it being the second time that a Tennessee loss has ended this way under Heupel, the Vols’ fourth-year coach explained why he thinks it was simply different circumstances between the end of the Arkansas game and 2021 Ole Miss game.
“Different situations,” Heupel said. “Older quarterback versus first (year) guy experienced.”
In fairness to Iamaleava, he was pushed out of bounds whereas Milton voluntarily ran out of bounds on the final play of the Ole Miss game. Still, Iamaleava should have known better than to try and run on that play and tried to force something into the end zone.
Despite the bad ending and disappointing performance from Iamaleava as a whole, Heupel remains confidence in his young quarterback as Tennessee heads into the Florida game.
“He’s got to come back and bounce back from it,” Heupel said. “He’s played way too good not to respond the right way. And I know he will.”
