Nico Iamaleava Named to Maxwell Watchlist

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava has been named to the Maxwell Award Watchlist.

College football is a little under a month away from kicking off which means the preseason awards and watchlists are going to start rolling in. One of which has already been announced is the Maxwell Award watchlist which Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava made the cut.

The Maxwell Award is often tied to the Heisman Trophy as it is awarded to the best player in college football. The organization released a list of 80 total players that made the preseason watchlist and Iamaleava was one of them. A substantial honor for the Volunteers as he has only started one game in his career against Iowa in the Citrus Bowl last season, so further cementing the preseason expectations for Iamaleava. Other notable names in the SEC to make the list were Georgia quarterback Cason Beck, Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe and Missouri’s Luther Burden.

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel spoke very highly of Iamaleava at SEC Media Days ahead of a very pivotal 2024 season for the program.

“The bowl experience for him, I think, was a great experience where you feel the pressure, the ownership of having to know that you’re going to be the guy. I thought throughout the course of last season, he continued to grow in his consistency and how he prepared. He’s been urgent in everything that he’s done since he got back after the bowl game. Has had a great summer. Continuing to build timing and rhythm with our wide receivers, get on the same page before we get into training camp, and obviously excited to see him grow throughout the course of training camp.”

College football analyst Greg McElroy has been very adamant that he thinks Tennessee will be one of the better football teams. And for those reasons, he also thinks Iamaleava is going to be one of the best quarterbacks in the country this season. So much so, that he thinks the Volunteer could be a surprise Heisman Trophy winner in 2024. He had this to say on SEC Network when the group of analysts picked their sleeper Heisman contenders:

“I like Nico Iamaleava. I think Tennessee is a top-10 team. I know I’m probably a little higher on them than most. Other people are still in ‘wait and see mode’ which I totally support and I totally get that. I just think if Tennessee is going to be as good as I anticipate them being, that means that he’s gonna have a ridiculous year.”

Winning the Heisman in your first year starting would be a massive feat for Iamaleava and it likely would also mean he would take home the Maxwell Award at the end of the year as well.

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