Ranking Nico Iamaleava's 2024 Performances: #11 Arkansas

Nico Iamaleava is one of the largest topics of conversation in college football ahead of his redshirt sophomore season with the UCLA Bruins.

After a stellar redshirt freshman season with the Tennessee Volunteers that led them to their first ever College Football Playoff appearance, Iamaleava entered the transfer portal after a NIL dispute that was largely publicized and turned him into one of the most polarizing figures in college football.

He finished last season leading the Vols to a 10-3 record and passed for 2,616 yards, 19 touchdowns and five interceptions on 63.8% (213-334) completion percentage. With that being said, let's rank Iamaleava's best performances of the season, moving onto No. 11 -- Oct. 5 at Arkansas.

We are officially on the final loss of Iamaleava's season, a 19-14 barn burner against the Razorbacks. This game follows a trend of his redshirt freshman season, where if he wasn't able to score, his team likely looses.

He finished the game against Arkansas with 158 passing yards on 17-of-29 (58.6 %) completions with 17 rushing yards on 11 carries and a passer rating of 104.4 and an ESPN Adjusted QBR rating of 36.3.

This was one of three games in which Iamaleava was unable to score a passing or rushing touchdown. The others were a 23-17 win in October against Florida and a 31-17 November loss to Georgia.

Tennessee jumped out to a 14-3 lead in this game, giving up a field goal in the first quarter and not scoring until the third quarter, but Arkansas scored 16 unanswered points in the second half to come back and win the game.

Vols running back Dylan Sampson was responsible for both of Tennessee's touchdowns in the third quarter and finished with a monstrous 138 rushing yards on 22 carries. He was, frankly, the only Volunteer to show up this game, though.

This game, similar to his other two losses, was not a great showing from Iamaleava, who was a redshirt freshman at the time. However, I'd argue that he showed he's able to put together long drives down the field against even the best defenses in college football.

Sure, it was a bad game on paper, but a talent like Iamaleava will only get better. Not to mention, the Big Ten arguably doesn't have the talent to stack up against the SEC. This means that, along with an anticipated talent leap, Iamaleava should be one of the better backs in the conference.