Nico Iamaleava will run through a wall for his team.
He will even let the wall run through him.
The senior quarterback proved it less than a year ago, when he led a game-winning drive against the Terrapins at the Rose Bowl.
UCLA football (3-0, 1-0 Big Ten) may once again call on Iamaleava to play hero when it plays Maryland (2-1 Big Ten) at SECU Stadium in College Park on Saturday.
“It’s not unnecessary hits, but he takes a lot of them, and he just keeps picking himself back up off the ground,” coach Bob Chesney said Monday. “When he runs, he’s not a guy that’s going to slide or dive or do those things. … That’s the game he plays, and that’s the toughness he plays it with.”
When Iamaleava first played Maryland last season, linebacker Sidney Stewart came screaming off the edge in the fourth quarter and dealt a blow that Iamaleava needed more than a few minutes to get up from.
The broadcast began showing sophomore quarterback Madden Iamaleava, the starting signal caller’s younger brother, watching from the Bruin sideline and Luke Duncan, the team’s backup quarterback last season, beginning to warm up and throw.
But with the game tied with 36 seconds remaining, Nico Iamaleava trotted back onto the field – completing two passes for 33 yards to help set up senior kicker Mateen Bhaghani’s walk-off field goal.
Chesney’s tone Monday seemed reminiscent of former coach Tim Skipper last season – that toughness and aggression aren’t qualities you coach out of a player.
“A lot of times when he pulls it down and runs, there’s a pass play that he could check down or throw away, but he just sees something in the run game,” Chesney said Tuesday. “That’s just part of what makes him special.”
After Iamaleava experienced several blows in Saturday’s game against Purdue – causing the starting quarterback to miss a handful of snaps but still complete the game – Chesney said that Iamaleava’s playstyle is going to result in more bumps and bruises than he’d like, but ultimately, football is a sport played by athletes who are rarely, if ever, at 100%.
Maryland quarterback Malik Washington’s completion percentage was worse than a coin flip when he faced UCLA last season – completing just 23 of his 48 passes for 210 yards.
This season, however, he’s completed 71.6% of his 116 passes for 892 yards – putting him behind only USC’s Jayden Maiava and Purdue’s Ryan Browne in passing yards among Big Ten quarterbacks.
“Last year is what it was – he’s an entirely different quarterback right now,” Chesney said. I’d put him on par with the kid from Cal (California quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele) and the kid we just played (Browne). I even think there might be a bit more to his game.”
Not only has Washington’s arm been comparable to Browne’s – which threw for 378 yards against UCLA on Saturday – but the Glen Burnie, Maryland, local can take off when he needs to. He had 67 rushing yards against the Bruins on Oct. 18 and set his career high with 164 rushing yards against Rutgers on Nov. 8.
“He’s got the ability to extend plays with his feet or make plays with his feet,” defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler said Wednesday. “And there ain’t a throw this kid can’t make.”
Meanwhile, Madden Iamaleava has appeared in four games as a Bruin – one last season and in all three of this season’s affairs – but has attempted just a single pass, which went incomplete, last week.
Madden Iamaleava has seemingly received a solid chunk of repetitions at practice across his two seasons in Westwood, but how that translates to gametime remains to be seen.
Regardless, both Chesney and offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy expressed confidence in their second-string quarterback.
“He’s got different strengths than Nico, just like everybody in the quarterback room,” Kennedy said Wednesday. “So it definitely changes how you might attack the defense, but also some of that’s the flow of the game too. If there’re certain things that we’re trying to attack, then we’ve got to make sure we put that as an emphasis regardless of who’s in. … To be honest with you, he’s done a great job of just managing the offense when he’s been in.”
Regardless of who’s under center for the Bruins, however, senior Mikey Matthews will be absent from the wide receiver room for the remainder of the season due to injury, Chesney said Monday.
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