Dan Fleser
Nico Iamaleava’s appetite knows no bounds. Along with digesting Tennessee’s offense, he spent his quarterback understudy year grasping the concept of breakfast.
One is food for thought, the essence of which he summarized as “Why we do certain things.”
“Why we motion and why tempo is important,” Iamaleava said. “Just things like that.”
There’s a whole lot of things like that.
The other objective simply has involved food – as much as he can stomach. He needed more sustenance to fortify his 6-foot-6 frame. The redshirt freshman is listed at 215 pounds. He aspires to 220 but conceded to burning through calories like a brushfire. So, he’s starting his days with more fuel: French toast, eggs and sausage.
To be clear, it’s about a whole lot of food.
“More breakfast for me,” he said. “Breakfast meals are the hardest for me.”
The thoroughness of Iamaleava’s preparation befits the magnitude of his undertaking. He doesn’t preview simply as Tennessee’s next starting quarterback. He is arguably the Vols’ greatest hope behind center since Peyton Manning. He is the winch to hoist Tennessee’s aspirations both within the SEC and nationally.
He is the man. And he spent his media day interview session on Tuesday savoring the arrival of his moment.
“Year two is something I’ve envisioned since coming here,” Iamaleava said. “Year two is gonna be my year, go time for me, and I’m ready,”
To date, our understanding of his potential involves mostly an appreciation for his patience. He arrived early and soaked up QB knowledge from both Hendon Hooker and Joe Milton. He made cameo appearances in four regular season games last season and then made his first start in the Citrus Bowl game against Iowa after Milton opted out to prepare for the NFL Draft. Against the Hawkeyes, he threw for 151 yards and a touchdown and ran for three more scores. His performance was encouraging.
But there was nothing resembling the fastball former Vol QB Heath Shuler threw years ago for his first career touchdown pass. The freshman’s 14-yard pass across the field to Craig Faulkner in the 1991 regular season finale against Vanderbilt elicited an audible gasp from the crowd of 94,976 at Neyland Stadium. The play was a portent of Shuler highlights to come. There were enough for him to earn All-American honors and be named SEC player of the year in 1993.
This is the sort of career many fans wish for Iamaleava.
Excitement is in the eye of the beholder, however, and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle was stoked by what he saw from Iamaleava after the bowl game.
“My favorite thing is, for all the accolades he got after that game, he wins the MVP, and he came out of it like ‘Man, I left so much on the field,’ ” Halzle said. “When you have a guy like that, that is fun to coach because you don’t have to worry about trying to keep a guy humble. That is just who he is. He came in as soon as the team came back and was ‘OK, I want to watch it. How do I get better? How do I do this?’ ”
One way or another, the man is hungry.
-----
Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who has covered University of Tennessee athletics since 1988. He is a member of the Tennessee Sportswriters and the U.S. Basketball Writers Halls of Fame. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.