Nico Iamaleava was nearly perfect in his home debut at Tennessee's starting quarterback.

He completed his first 10 passes of the game, set a school record for yards in any half and finished with a stat line of 314 yards and three touchdowns on 22-for-28 passing in just 30 minutes of football.

Despite this, Iamaleava and his head coach, Josh Heupel, aren't necessarily satisfied. It was a successful day inside Neyland Stadium but they accep there is still room to grow.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

When Heupel was asked about if he saw anything wrong with Iamaleava's performance, he quipped back to Knoxville News Sentinel reporter Adam Sparks.

"Your perspective might be a little bit different than mine," Heupel said. "But he knows those things, too. He's a young player. Came out, played really efficiently, effectively, made plays down the field. But there’s some things that he can control and be better and he knows that and he wants that too."

With a performance that featured so little flaws, what is there to critique?

Iamaleava points to the weak drive the team put together to close out the half. The Vols got the ball with just under two minutes on the clock and had the opportunity to push Iamaleava into a two-minute drill.

The result was a sloppy possession featuring a chop block penalty that resulted in Tennessee sitting on the ball and running out the clock after a failed conversion on 3rd-and-23.

"I thought I didn't finish the second quarter well," Iamaleava said. "I can finish better with it. Just operating the offense at a high level. Really that was the main thing for me, not falling asleep while we're up big and still going out there and operating the offense at a high level."

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Everything Josh Heupel said after Vols' season-opening win vs. Chattanooga

While the mentality is set on improvement heading into an important neutral site clash with NC State, its impossible to overlook the positives Iamaleava displayed in his record-breaking performance.

Iamaleava didn't know at the time he had statistically the best half of any quarterback in a storied Vols' history, but he admitted it was a cool moment to find out.

"I didn't know," Iamaleava said. "A couple of my teammates were telling me in the little interview that I had at the end of the game and that was really when I found out. Yeah man, it was a cool, surreal moment. I didn't even know about it but felt good to go out there operate with my teammates."

Overall, it was an accumulation of off-season effort that paid off on the field for Iamaleava and the offense.

The headlines have focused primarily on the young signal caller for months following his Citrus Bowl debut and now he was able to put it on the field.

"Felt great, man, just going out there and competing with my guys," Iamaleava said. "We put a lot of work into this for this year so felt good to just go out there and play with what we've been working on."

The next test is a Wolfpack team that struggled in its opener against Western Carolina but survived to advance to 1-0. NC State could resemble the test Iamaleava got in his first ever college start as he'll battle an out-of-conference team at a neutral site.

Iamaleava ran for three and threw for one touchdown in that dominating Citrus Bowl win over Iowa and arguably has better weapons around him this time around, though.

–––––

– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.

– ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.

– SUBSCRIBE TO THE VOLREPORT YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

– FOLLOW VOLREPORT ON TWITTER: @TennesseeRivals, @ByNoahTaylor, @RyanTSylvia, @Dale_Dowden, @ShayneP_Media.

–––––