One of those he’s pushing is Mike Matthews, who might just end up being his top target this fall. Through all the NIL drama and rumors, both Matthews and Iamaleava ended up staying in hopes of taking this offense to the next level in 2025. Spring practice got going last week, but the work began long before that.
“I spent a lot of time with him,” Iamaleava said of Matthews. “He came out to Cali and trained with me a little bit, so got to get some extra reps with him out there. Really just, we got a new scheme in and just him dialing into the new scheme. Yeah, man, just us building that rapport.”
Matthews will be a top option for Tennessee along with Chris Brazzell this season. From there, it’s a bunch of question marks and youth. Matthews himself hasn’t played a ton, thanks to a couple of untimely injuries. But we did see a couple of those flashes late in the year, and Tennessee is set to lean heavily on him going forward.
“I think his ball skills, man,” Iamaleava said of Matthews. “He has great ball skills and just him being out there more. Last year and in spring ball he was still coming back off of hamstring injury and stuff like that, so I didn’t really get to get as many reps as I wanted. This year, Mike has taken that big step as showing up as a pro every day and coming to work.”
