Tennessee Football QB Grade: Nico Iamaleava vs. Vanderbilt

Tennessee football is finally in the College Football Playoff thanks to an outstanding performance from Nico Iamaleava.

Tanner Johnson | 2 Hours Ago

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava (8) looks for a receiver during the third quarter at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024. / Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Tennessee Volunteers

Tennessee football is finally in the College Football Playoff thanks to an outstanding performance from Nico Iamaleava.

Nico Iamaleava was in for a challenging game on Saturday on the road at Vanderbilt.

The Commodores had already beaten Alabama and come within one possession of beating Texas, this is clearly a team that can do some damage to highly ranked teams. However, Iamaleava answered the call with the best game of his college career so far. But it did not start out very smoothly.

Through no fault of his own, he had his work cut out for him immediately. Vanderbilt ran back the opening kickoff and then recovered a Dylan Sampson fumble on Tennessee’s first possession of the game. Iamaleava found himself in a 14-0 hole just like that.

From that point on, Tennessee scored 29 straight points and absolutely dominated the Commodores. Iamaleava finished with 257 passing yards and four touchdowns. His only interception came on an underthrown deep ball. Other than that, he was essentially perfect.

His favorite target of the day, as he has been all season, was Dont’e Thornton Jr., who took a deep slant 28 yards for a touchdown for the Vols' first score of the game. He threw another touchdown to Thornton that was very significant and tied the game at 17. It was an 86-yard strike over the middle of the field to the speedy receiver that became Tennessee's longest pass play since 2003.

Right before halftime, Iamaleava put Tennessee ahead for good with an 18-yard touchdown pass to tight end Miles Kitselman. He tossed another beautiful strike to Mike Matthews to give Tennessee a 31–17 lead in the third quarter. By that point, the game was well in hand and Iamaleava had silenced any doubters he had entering the game.

Tennessee will be playing in the College Football Playoff largely because the Vols' freshman quarterback stared adversity in the face and played his best game of the year.

Grade A+