The Tennessee Volunteers have a brand new — and surprising — look heading into 2025.
At first of spring observe, former five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava was the beginning quarterback after an honest redshirt freshman season that noticed him assist Tennessee make it to the School Soccer Playoff.
Issues rapidly unraveled between Iamaleava and Tennessee, although, as a dispute over NIL cash led to the previous star recruit hitting the switch portal. Iamaleava is now at UCLA, and in a stroke of irony, Joey Aguilar, who was anticipated to be the probably starter at UCLA in 2025, hit the switch portal and ended up at Rocky Prime.
The Vols and Bruins primarily switched beginning quarterbacks for 2025, and one SEC analyst, the always-opinionated Paul Finebaum, thinks Tennessee primarily downgraded.
“This was the most important story of the offseason, with Nico leaving. Joey Aguilar, from App State by way of UCLA just isn’t the proper reply. He’s good, however he’s not nice,” Finebaum stated on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” on Tuesday (h/t On3). “Nico might’ve been nice, despite the fact that he wasn’t final 12 months. Fairly frankly, I don’t like Tennessee’s possibilities of the Playoff in any respect.”
Final season, Iamaleava threw for two,616 yards and 19 touchdowns (5 interceptions) whereas additionally speeding for 358 yards and three scores. As Finebaum alluded to, it wasn’t a celebrity 12 months from Iamaleava by any stretch of the creativeness, however he does have that type of potential.
Aguilar transferred to UCLA after a really profitable stint at Appalachian State. He threw for 3,003 yards and 23 touchdowns with 14 interceptions. He did rating two touchdowns on the bottom, however he is actually not the working and athletic menace that Iamaleava is.
In the end, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel guess on himself and his workers this spring. He made a degree that no person is greater than this system, even the star quarterback, however now he is obtained to again that up by teaching up Aguilar.
He is a veteran quarterback with loads of good expertise, however enjoying within the Solar Belt, even at a high-level program like Appalachian State, is completely different than enjoying within the SEC.
It could be truthful to foretell that Tennessee will take a step again consequently, however that is why they play the video games. Heupel, Aguilar and the Volunteers will get the possibility to show themselves this fall.
In the meantime, Iamaleava must attempt to resurrect his picture with one of many worst packages within the Large Ten.
