With a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff on the line, No. 7 Tennessee will reportedly be without freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava when they head out on the road to take on No. 12 Georgia this Saturday, according to Fox Sports’ Chris Fallica.
Fallica spoke about Iamaleava during an interview with UGASports.com on Tuesday. He revealed that the quarterback isn’t expected to recover from his current concussion to suit up against the Bulldogs.
“I don’t know what you have heard about Nico Iamaleava playing this week,” Fallica said. “I have heard that it was a bad concussion, and people that I’ve spoken to do not believe that he is going to play.”
Fallica also mentioned how Volunteers head coach Josh Heupel “offered a different tune” about the team’s quarterback earlier this week, but that was expected to force Georgia to prepare as if Tennessee will have its starting signal-caller on the field this weekend.
Iamaleava didn’t play in the second half of the Volunteers’ win over Mississippi State last Saturday after suffering an upper-body injury in the middle of the second quarter.
According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Tuesday, the Tennessee quarterback is currently in concussion protocol, and his status for this weekend against Georgia is still “undetermined.”
As Fallica alluded to on Monday, Heupel said that he believes Iamaleava will “be in great shape” to face the Bulldogs on Saturday.
If the freshman is unable to play this weekend, one would assume that senior Gaston Moore will start at quarterback for the Volunteers. He replaced Iamaleava in the second half of Tennessee’s win over Mississippi State last week.
During his four years with the team, Moore has never started a game for the Volunteers, so Georgia wouldn’t know what to expect from him. At the same time, the Tennessee quarterback’s inexperience as a starter could be a considerable disadvantage against a ferocious Bulldogs defense.
Regardless of who starts under center for the Volunteers in their next matchup, an unknown situation at the quarterback position certainly doesn’t seem like it will help the school’s chances of ending its current seven-game losing streak to Georgia on Saturday.
