Why Nico Iamaleava is a game-changing recruit for Tennessee

Tennessee landed the biggest commitment of the Josh Heupel era to date on Monday, with five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava announcing his pledge to the Vols. The 6-foot-5.5, 195-pounder from Long Beach (Calif.) Long Beach Poly ranks as the the No. 5 overall prospect in the 2023 On300. Iamaleava also ranks as the No. 5 overall prospect in the On3 Consensus, which evenly weights all four major recruiting media companies.

Iamaleava would be the first five-star quarterback to sign with Tennessee since Casey Clausen inked with the Vols out of Mission Hills (Calif.) Bishop Alemany in the 2000 cycle.

Lets take a look at why Iamaleava is such a big commitment for Josh Heupel and the Vols.

Nico Iamaleava is a top physical talent

Nico Iamaleava is a physically-gifted quarterback prospect with considerable upside. He looks like the top pure arm talent among quarterbacks in the 2023 cycle at this juncture.

I watched Iamaleava throw alongside several other touted 2023 signal callers at Clemson’s camp last June. His arm strength was palpable in that setting. Simply put, he has a huge arm. There were a few occasions where the velocity from Iamaleava’s throws took receivers off their feet.

While he’s still in the developmental stages, Iamaleava has also shown some encouraging nuance as a passer. He’s not just throwing fastballs at the the high school level and shows the ability to layer his passes with touch.

Iamaleava is a slender 6-foot-5.5, 195 pounds and has considerable room for physical growth. We often see taller quarterbacks struggle with longer releases or mobility. That does not appear to be the case here. Iamaleava has a natural motion despite his longer arms and is a light-footed, bouncy athlete. He also doubles as a top volleyball player and you can see those skills manifest on the field. Iamaleava is able to avoid the pass rush and quickly reset his feet. He’s also capable of picking up first downs as a scrambler.

Iamaleava’s fit and potential impact at Tennessee

Nico Iamaleava‘s skill set looks to be an ideal fit in Josh Heupel’s Tennessee offense. Heupel runs a variation of the offense created by former Baylor head coach Art Briles. We’ve recently seen the offense take a significant foothold in the SEC, with Arkansas, Ole Miss and future conference member Oklahoma now employing the scheme.

The up-tempo offense creates large passing windows by way of extreme wide receiver splits. There’s a heavy emphasis on the downfield passing game with a series of vertical option routes. Ideally, you’d want a quarterback with the arm talent to capitalize on the frequent deep shots. On paper, this this offense and Iamaleava look like an ideal match. You could say he fits the offense “to a T.”

Tennessee signed several talented skill players in its 2022 class that could provide Iamaleava with some dangerous targets. We were higher than the industry on Tennessee wide receiver signees Kaleb Webb and Marquarius White. Webb was perhaps the biggest senior riser among receivers nationally in the 2022 cycle. The 6-foot-3, 195-pounder had a monster senior season at Powder Springs (Ga.) McEachern with 1,601 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns. He pairs a large catch radius with very good long speed (consistently runs sub-11.0 seconds in the 100 meters). White is a smaller receiver at 5-foot-9, 153-pounds with outstanding quickness and top-end speed. The Pinson (Ala.) Clay-Chalkville product ran 10.68 in the 100 meters in his first season of track as a junior.

Iamaleava’s talent has the potential to unlock Tennessee’s nucleus of young skill players. It also wouldn’t be a surprise to see Iamaleava’s commitment attract other top prospects to the Vols’ 2023 class.

Moving forward

Iamaleava played his sophomore seasons at Warren High in Downey, California. In watching several of his games last fall, the Warren offense did not make for an easy evaluation. Iamaleava threw an inordinate number of screens and short passes in the games we watched. He completed 59.5 percent of his passes for 2,224 yards at 8.23 yards per attempt as a junior. On a positive note, Iamaleava has done a great job taking care of the football – he threw 33 touchdowns to just one interception last fall.

The five-star signal caller recently transferred from Warren to Long Beach Poly. The new situation will hopefully provide a more translatable scheme which could make for an easier evaluation.

Iamaleava is one of three quarterbacks who rank in the top five of the On300 along with Arch Manning (No. 1) and USC commit Malachi Nelson (No. 2). The new Vols pledge has the talent to challenge for the top overall spot. We’ll be tracking all three closely over the course of their senior seasons.

Regardless of where Iamaleava ends up in the final rankings, it’s safe to say he is a game-changing recruit for Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Volunteers.