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The Tuscaloosa News
How Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer plans to stop Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava
- Story byThe Tuscaloosa News
- How Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer plans to stop Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava
Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer has been impressed with what he's seen from Tennessee redshirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava.
But that doesn't mean DeBoer and the Crimson Tide will approach the former five-star differently than any other quarterback Alabama has faced.
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"He's talented. You can see it's there," DeBoer said. "He's still, I think, growing and developing. We just have to make sure we disrupt him enough and make sure we're showing pictures and also getting bodies on bodies on the outside to where we make life hard like we would want to any other quarterback."
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Tennessee is one of four SEC teams, along with Texas, Alabama and Ole Miss , to average more than 40 points per game. Much of that has to do with Dylan Sampson and the Volunteers ' run game, the seventh-best rushing attack in college football that is averaging 246.2 yards per game.
Iamaleava has 1,219 passing yards in six games, along with eight total touchdowns and three interceptions. He's struggled in three SEC starts, not throwing for more than 194 yards in a single game and recording one touchdown pass and one interception.
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DeBoer said he knows what Iamaleava, the No. 3 player overall in the 2023 recruiting class per 247Sports composite rankings, can be when he's at his best.
"He's got a live arm," DeBoer said. "Extremely talented. You can tell they got the skill on the outside where they can hit a home run and make big plays any time."
DeBoer also realizes how defenses such as Oklahoma , Arkansas and Florida have stopped Iamaleava, forcing 10 sacks in the past three weeks.
"I think a lot of it is just trying to disrupt him to where the continuity and the flow is just not consistent," DeBoer said. "Any quarterback every week, that's the goal is to try to really cause some chaos and change things up on him. They get into their tempo off of positive plays And that's the key is to make sure they don't get into that rhythm."
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Alabama takes on Tennessee at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Neyland Stadium on ABC.
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer thoughts on Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava
