All of the focus of the college football world on Saturday will be on the two quarterbacks playing in Knoxville, Tennessee. Alabama and Tennessee are fighting to earn a spot in the College Football Playoff and win the SEC along the way. Star quarterbacks Jalen Milroe and Nico Iamaleava will be at the forefront of their team’s success or failure.
Alabama’s path to winning is clear, and head coach Kalen DeBoer acknowledged as much this week during the SEC conference call. He knows that solving Tennessee’s offense means keeping Iamaleava uncomfortable as often as possible.
Iamaleava is one of the most impressive physical specimens at quarterback we’ve seen in some years. A redshirt freshman with a cannon for an arm, good mobility, and standing 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds, Iamaleava is physically capable of anything. But he’s running Josh Heupel’s unique offense without a ton of high-end talent around him.
DeBoer revealed that LT Overton, Quandarrius Robinson, Tim Keenan III, and Qua Russaw are at the heart of their defensive game plan. Without a doubt, this pass-rushing group will define how much Iamaleava can produce.
I think a lot of it is just trying to disrupt him to where the continuity and the flow is just not consistent, and that’s gonna be any quarterback. Every week, that’s the goal is try to just really cause some chaos and change things up on them…
They get into their tempo off of positive plays, and that’s the key is try to make sure that they don’t get into that rhythm, just like any offense, that’s what you’re trying to do. He’s talented. You can see it’s there. He’s still, I think, growing and developing, and we’ve just gotta 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 opponent.”
Although Tennessee’s offensive line is vulnerable, it’s not as if Overton and Robinson have led a consistently good pass rush. Overton has helped his 2025 NFL Draft stock significantly and is going to be in the top-45 mix, but he’s also disappeared for long stretches. He has to take advantage of a line with beat-up tackles who have been average throughout this season.
With 25 pressures created on the year and a 26 percent pass-rush win rate, Overton is the primary force. Robinson has actually graded higher and has a higher win rate, per PFF, but has played 51 fewer snaps. His struggles against the run early in the year showed more than recently, so he’s more of a subpackage star.
It’s unknown how much we’ll see Robinson in this matchup because Tennessee has star rusher Dylan Sampson to account for. If Robinson plays a lot, then Tennessee can run the ball at him and likely find more success. However, Alabama might need to take that risk as they seek out answers to an otherwise limited cast of options.
One thing to consider is Iamaleava’s passing splits. He’s a terrific passer off play-action, completing 73 percent of attempts with a 10.3 yards-per-average mark. His big-time throw rate is excellent at 6.5 percent, and his quarterback rating is 119.1.
But those numbers take a huge drop without play-action. His rating goes to 68.4, and his time to throw swells from 2.8 seconds to 3.2. Surprisingly, his turnover-worthy throw rate drops, but his quality throws plummet to almost non-existent rates.
Beyond the obvious concern of whether this offense actually makes sense for Iamaleava without top-tier receivers to help him, these splits give Alabama the chance to do what it takes to remove the run game as often as possible.
Of course, Sampson won’t make that easy, but it’s imperative the Tide get Iamaleava into obvious passing downs often and then unleash exotic blitzes and coverage matches.
It’s all easier said than done, but look for Overton and Robinson to be the defensive x-factors for the Tide.
