KNOXVILLE — There was nothing Nico Iamaleava could do Saturday that was going to coax another story praising him.
That storyline had already been written about, spoken on and tweeted out ad nauseam, so the plan coming into the University of Tennessee’s season opener was to find some unique angle without adding to the hype for the much-flattered redshirt freshman quarterback.
The week’s buildup included a Friday social media post by ESPN’s Peter Burns that proclaimed: “Just touched down in Knoxville, home of a future Heisman winning QB.”
Whatever his final stats wound up, it would all come against an outmanned University of Tennessee at Chattanooga team that, while expected to return to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs this year after reaching the second round last fall, simply doesn’t have the necessary ingredients to challenge a Southeastern Conference foe.
So the challenge began shortly after kickoff at Neyland Stadium to find something, anything else to highlight as a first-game takeaway.