Horrible News Am Leaving ; Nico Iamaleava accepted a deal of $98.7m to depart from Vols after…..

Tennessee’s highly-touted freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava lived up to the hype in his first career start as he led the Volunteers to a 35-0 win over Iowa in the Citrus Bowl and earned game MVP honors.

Iamaleava became just the fourth true freshman to start a bowl game for Tennessee following the news that Joe Milton chose to forgo playing in the Citrus Bowl to focus on the NFL Draft.

The first drive of his first career start got off to a tough start. Back-to-back penalties forced the Vols into a 1st-and-23 situation and then Nico was sacked to bring the Hawkeyes offense back onto the field.

Iowa marched all the way down the field to the four-yard line, but the Tennessee defense came up big to stop the Hawkeyes from getting on the board. On third down, Andre Turrentine, making his third career start, picked off Hill’s pass towards the end zone to end the drive. It marked Turrentine’s first interception of his Rocky Top career.

Sophomore running back Dylan Sampson also made his first career start for the Vols and racked up over 130 yards on the ground.