Iamaleava could play behind five multi-year senior OL in 2024
Tennessee still has a New Year’s Day date against Iowa in the Citrus Bowl before turning the page on its 2023 season, but the 2024 Volunteers could start four fifth-year seniors and one seventh-year senior across the offensive line.
Which would qualify as significant experience.
“I think that’s huge,” Vols center Cooper Mays said Tuesday afternoon in a news conference. “I’m obviously a little bit biased, but I think there is no better place to start than the O-line. We’re kind of the foundation of any team, and having experienced guys like us leading the charge I think is a good scenario.”
The 6-foot-3, 305-pounder out of Knoxville Catholic announced late last week that he would be returning for a fifth season with the Vols, having made multiple starts in each of his first four. Right tackle Gerald Mincey has revealed that he will be back at Tennessee as a fifth-year senior, while left tackle John Campbell Jr. announced that he is returning as a seventh-year senior.
Campbell redshirted at Miami as a freshman in 2018 and received a medical redshirt with the Hurricanes in 2021 while recovering from leg surgery, so his second season at Tennessee next year will be the result of the NCAA’s extra season of eligibility that was allowed at the outbreak of the coronavirus in March 2020.
Left guard Andrej Karic and right guard Javontez Spraggins would give the Vols two more fifth-year seniors should each elect to return, and what better way to break in new starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava, the five-star talent who has played in four games this season as the freshman backup to sixth-year senior Joe Milton III?
“He’s very humble and eager to learn,” Mays said of Tennessee’s quarterback-inwaiting, “and he’s ready for his opportunity.”
Mays underwent hernia surgery in early August, which resulted in him missing this season’s first four games. In the final eight contests, he played 463 snaps without allowing a sack.
For his career, Mays has played in 39 games with 31 starts and has yielded just four sacks in 2,007 career offensive snaps.
“I didn’t get to play most of the beginning half of the season, so it kind of snuck up on me a little bit,” Mays said when asked about his decision. “I love it around here. I love being a Volunteer, and there is no better way to finish it than trying to finish it the right way, and that’s being here with my brothers.”
Is this the end?
Tennessee running back Jabari Small and Vols defensive tackle Omari Thomas are 2020 signees out of Briarcrest Christian in Memphis.
Thomas recently announced that he would be returning for a fifth season in Knoxville, while Small has yet to reveal whether or not he will be coming back. On Tuesday, Thomas was asked about the last time he and Small were not teammates.
“Probably in little league, because we played together in middle school, and we played together in high school and college,” Thomas said. “It would be little league football, but at the same time, we were playing against each other. It would be different for sure.”