How GOOD Can Tennessee Vols Football Be in 2024? | High Expectations For Josh Heupel, Nico Iamaleava

how good can Tennessee be in 2024 Vegas has him at over under n and a half wins but with Nico eam malava entering into the fold in Knoxville like this is the dude now if you're a Tennessee fan the minute he committed you were saying all right Heisman Trophy National Championship just wait till Nico takes the field there's a lot of hype around Nico a lot of hype around Tennessee this year and honestly I think a lot of it is warranted if nicoo eam malava translates to who Tennessee fans think he could be to who we think he could be here at on three he was the number one player for us in the class of 2023 good things are going to happen in Knoxville and I think the path to them reaching their potential really is the foundation for that is in the first four games the first four games I believe are crucial you got Chattanooga NC State in Charlotte so it's a pseudo home game if you're NC State you play Kent State this is a big one here at Oklahoma place will be rocking I believe it's Oklahoma's first SEC game the story lines are massive with Josh hyp return to Norman those things are all going to be swirling around that game those first four games again I think are huge in the sense that those are massive for getting Nico imal yava comfortable because as talented as he is and yo he's talented we went out to Knoxville and saw them in a spring practice got to watch the whole two hours dude has a cannon freakish athlete ball pops out of his hand all those things are true but it's still going to be his first time being the guy in the start of a college football season first time playing against SEC competition like there's going to be I think a little bit of an acclamation period it's fair to expect that so during these first four games yes you try and get Nico comfortable yes you try and get him confident but I really need the defense if I'm a Tennessee fan to get dialed in got to get dialed in James Pierce there's a thought that you could be the best defensive player in the SEC if not all of college football depending on who you ask need to see that in the first four games need to be able to have ni's back in the first four games so he doesn't feel like he's got to go out there sling it take chances try to press the ball down the field if he doesn't have to let's just let the game come to him defense get some stops for those first four games and allow him to get confident allow him to get comfortable those two things go hand in hand the reason why that's important in those first four games is that's going to set the table in the trajectory for how you feel about the rest of your schedule like let's just be real here you you view Arkansas in that game against Florida very very differently sitting at 4-0 than you would at 2-2 okay like let's let's call it spade a spade also for Nico if he's able to be confident and be comfortable and you feel good as a staff giving him more on his plate the offense can start to evolve you can start to give him more Runway more opportunity to kind of make this offense more of his own and tailor it more and more to his skill set and expand on that and keep defenses off balance so Nico is the again the most obvious the most important hdden point for Tennessee football success in 2024 now with that being said there's some other variables that we have to account for when we look at how Nico is going to play in 2024 okay there's there's a couple different variables I think the first is the offensive line because there's some question marks there not that you don't have good pieces not that they can't or won't be good but I think you do have to protect him give him time because if Nico isn't able to go through his progressions doesn't matter how far you can throw it doesn't matter the way that the ball pops out of his hand he's going to have to make Rush decisions and he won't be able to achieve his potential other part of this The Supporting Cast for Nico has to be able to be better than they were last year like I I don't mean to be harsh but like that's true Joe Milton caught a lot of flak last year he did some of that is he came into the season with sky high expectations yours truly was a part of that some of that is because he was following the footsteps of hen and hooker some of that is because of the bll game he had but at the end of the day like I think Joe Milton what he didn't do for Tennessee in 2024 some of it's his fault there's no way around that but also he didn't have a ton of extra help when it came to guys catching passes for him like squirrel white was his go-to guy and outside of that if you took away squirrel white was there anybody that really made you nervous last year if you're playing Tennessee anybody that really made you Circle during The Scouting Report and say hey we got to make sure we take away this dude it was 10 and then when Brew McCoy went down I don't know who else you were really that concerned about the system in itself I think is going to allow them to compensate a little bit for that offensive line because they're going to go quickly defenses are going to be gashed they're going to be off balance they're going to be on their heels with how quickly they go but it's also I think going to play to the skill set of their wide receivers because when you go quickly and how much they spread defenses out that creates a lot of one-on-one coverages a lot of manto man and a lot of situations where hey the safety is not going to be able to get all the way over the top so at the end of the day here Dante Thorton win Chris brazle win go win your one-on-one match and if you do that you're G to get the football you're GNA score a lot of points so if I'm a Tennessee fan in summary here there's confidence around the defense you feel good about Nico if you can support him accordingly my thought process with how good can they really be if I'm a Tennessee fan is let's find a way to get to 10 so that means you can't drop any other game outside of B and outside of Georgia I understand if you're C fan you don't expect to drop any more power to you but if you can get to 10 and two and maybe just maybe if enough chaos happens you can find the right version of 9 and3 maybe you get into the dance but that's my thought here hey y'all thanks so much for watching subscribe to the channel here to make sure you don't miss an episode of the hard count also be sure to check out other videos on the Onre YouTube channel