Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava suffered his first loss as the Vols’ starter on Saturday night as No. 4 Tennessee fell to Arkansas 19-14 in Fayetteville.
It was a forgettable afternoon for Iamaleava and Tennessee’s entire passing attack with the redshirt freshman quarterback completing just 16-of-28 passes for 156 yards.
Following the game, Iamaleava met with the media and discussed what went wrong for the offense, not throwing it to the end zone on the final play of the game and more. Here’s everything Iamaleava said.
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On Arkansas defense giving Tennessee different looks
“A lot of different looks, man. That’s what we get every week. We’ve got to do a better job at adjusting to that. They went a lot of four-down, different three-down. We’ve got to do a better job of adjusting to it.”
On the biggest issues for Tennessee’s offense in the first half
“We’ve got to play cleaner, man. We started too many drives off with penalties, false starts, holding calls. Any big play we had, it was a penalty, so we’ve got to do a better job of playing clean, man, especially in away environments. We’ve got to come here and play cleaner.”
On the final play of the game
“As I rolled out, man, I seen Tae (Dont’e Thornton Jr.), he was coming open. 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.”
On the offensive line giving up sacks and committing penalties
“Yeah, man, we’ve just got to be better, man. A lot of stuff that, that’s on me. I’ve got to do a better job at getting our guys in the right protection. And, yeah, man, we’ll be better. We’ll use this as fuel and get us better for the rest of the season.”
On if the sacks wear on him mentally
“No, sir. Whenever a sack happens, I trust my guys to block up. None of those sacks affect me, man. My mentality is the next play.”
On whether anything was said in the locker room about Tennessee’s season not being over in the new 12-team College Football Playoff era
“Yeah, man. Heup said it. We’ve still got everything ahead of us, still got all our goals ahead of us. We’ve got to use this as fuel to get us better for the rest of the season.”
