The state of Tennessee probably is the most interesting football recruiting location of all the 50 states. The Volunteer state borders eight states: Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri. Coincidentally, Missouri also shares that state bordering record with Tennessee with the show-me state having: Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and of course Tennessee.
One would think that having the sixteenth highest population, at a little bit above 6.5 million, in a football mad state would automatically lead to yearly five star high school recruits at all the differing gridiron position groupings. Unfortunately, this is not so as for some reason, the state of Tennessee is not known for producing blue chip players on a high level especially ones who are willing to stay in state and go to the flagship school: The University of Tennessee, located at Knoxville. In fact top flight notable in-state signees such as Kyle Phillips, Jalen Hurd, Drew Richmond, Todd Kelly Jr.,Ty Chandler, Maleik Gray, Josh Malone and Trey Smith in the last 20 years, while good could never compare to the all time UT out of state high ranking recruits which includes names like: Eric Berry, Robert Meachum, Alvin Kamara and Bryce Brown who not only backed up their high rankings with their play in college but also had some productive years in the NFL.
That is the pathway Tennessee’s latest top level commit Nico Iamaleava wants to charter for his career. This 6’5” 195 pound quarterback from the city of Downey in California, which – fun fact – happens to be the birthplace of the Apollo space program and is also the home of the oldest operating McDonald’s restaurant in the world, has seen his stock rise exponentially from his sophomore year to his junior year. So much so that his Top247 ranking jumped from number 77, his debut, to now at gaudy number 3 Top247 2023 ranking.
How Are These High School Rankings Tabulated?
As one of the leaders in the high school football recruiting industry, 247Sports have seemingly cornered the market on how to accurately project particular positional traits that should accurately predict a player’s production right up to the NFL draft. Due to their NFL Draft guiding principles, they take some cues as to trends and points of emphasis related to positional value and geographic origination. So by the time the final Top247 and five-star list is released, 247Sports tries to meet some standard thresholds for which regions typically produce the most players and which positions tend to get drafted at a higher rate and are valued higher than others.
247Sports work based on exhaustive analytical studies of NFL Draft results and retroactive looks at NFL Draft picks as high school prospects, they have also established position-by-position principles that are most predictive of college football success that they use to inform their position rankings.
To go further into the weeds, 247Sports have created a credible ‘star’ system that has been an accurate guide for college evaluators and recruiting enthusiasts alike for many years.
- 5 stars (98-110 rating): The top 32 players in the country to mirror the 32 first round picks in the NFL Draft. These are 32 players that 247Sports believe are the most likely to be drafted in the first round from each recruiting class.
- 4 stars (90-97 rating): These are players that they believe are the most likely to produce college careers that get them drafted.
- 3 stars (80-89 rating): This is where the bulk of college football prospects are found. Possible NFL players long term. This group could be broken down further to three points – A high 3 star (87-89): is considered a player with significant NFL upside who expects to be an impact college football player. A mid 3 star (84-86): is a player that 247Sports consider to be a capable starter for a Power Five football team and an impact player at the Group of Five level. A low 3 star (80-83): is a player that they consider to be a potential contributor at a Power Five program but a probable Group of Five starter with impact potential.
- 2 stars (70-79 rating): These are prospects that 247Sports consider to be FBS-level players with very limited NFL potential.
Following up with that ranking specifically for 247Sports, they also attempt to triangulate ranking information from their competitors in the field by implementing the 247Sports Composite Rating. The 247Sports Composite Rating is a proprietary algorithm that compiles prospect “rankings” and “ratings” listed in the public domain by the major media recruiting services. It converts average industry ranks and ratings into a linear composite index capping at 1.0000, which indicates a consensus No. 1 prospect across all services.
The 247Sports Composite Rating is said to be the industry’s most comprehensive and unbiased prospect ranking and is also used to generate 247Sports Team Recruiting Rankings.
All major media services share an equal percentage in the 247Sports Composite Rating.
The composite index equally weights this percentage among the services that participate in a ranking for that specific prospect.
All industry services have a different philosophy on the number of stars distributed with each class. The 247Sports Composite Rating assigns stars based on an approximate average distribution of stars from the industry.
Best Tennessee Quarterback Recruit Since …. Peyton?
Nico Iamaleava, which is short for Nicholaus Iamaleava Jr., is now only behind number 2 Top247 Oregon commit Dante Moore and the 247Sports composite number 1 Arch Manning. If that last name sounds familiar to Volunteer fans, Arch is the nephew of probably Tennessee’s most popular – and impactful – quarterback commit of all time, one Peyton Manning.
There are pretty good reasons why Peyton is revered as he is up by Rocky Top, which has become the official nickname of the city of Knoxville and the actual University of Tennessee (especially at Neyland Stadium), and had its origins as a bluegrass song and eventually became one of Tennessee’s ten official state songs and is a favorite of UT fans, alumni, and others who sing it while the Vols play at Neyland Stadium. For Tennessee, signing Peyton in 1994 – which helped UT’s class earn consensus No. 1 ranking in the nation – set the groundwork of what became a national championship squad, ironically just a year after he left the Volunteers.
That was certainly not all, Peyton Manning was known for or could take credit for. He left with a school record of 89 touchdown passes, the single game record of 523 yards passing and all told set over 33 school records, seven SEC records and two NCAA passing records during his stellar Tennessee career where he won 39 of his 45 games as the starting quarterback.
This is the type of success that the over 3 million fans of Tennessee Volunteers football program expect from the official signature of Nico Iamaleava’s offer sheet to the University of Tennessee on signing day later on this year.
Why Is Signing Nico Iamaleava So Important To The Tennessee Volunteers?
Hope, for a fanbase that longs to be the talk of college football again, the signing of Nico Iamaleava could be the start of an extremely relevant time period for Volunteer nation. Nico Iamaleava’s signing alone has had other major recruits, across the nation, considering adding Tennessee to their campus visits list. This boon of interest coupled with projected results on the field, should set the base for top recruiting classes for years to come. If even half of these things come to pass then that would prove why Nico Iamaleava was one of the most coveted recruits in Tennessee’s football program history.