Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel answered questions from the media on Wednesday during the SEC Coaches Teleconference. The Vols are coming off a disappointing loss against Oklahoma and have their second open date of the season this week.
Heupel discussed areas that Tennessee needs to clean up from the Oklahoma game, how they’re treating the second open date of the season and much more. Here’s everything Heupel said.
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Opening statement
“Good afternoon, everybody. Bye week this week for our guys. On the field with them today and be back out there tomorrow as well. Some of our coaches will get on the road here at the end of the week recruiting. Everybody in program, disappointed, stating the obvious there with the result of the game from Saturday. Got a chance to get healed up, continue to get better here as we keep pushing through the season here and a big three game stretch to go finish the right way and control what we control in our preparation and practice habits, getting ready to go play really good football. So I’ll open it up for questions.”
On the atmosphere at Mississippi State
“It is unique that they’re able to bring in noisemakers— the cowbells into the stadium. Certainly not the biggest inside of our league. But it is loud inside of it. It’s a unique noise. That was a good win for us offensively and special teams for a large portion of the day didn’t play well. Defense played really pretty well throughout the course of the football game. Offensively, special teams, I think we gave them three short fields inside the 20-yard line. But we had a couple of false start penalties in that one, a couple in critical situations that changed a third down sequence, fourth down sequence. It’s unique for sure.”
On the similarities between his offense and Jeff Lebby’s at Mississippi State
“Yeah, I think there’s some similarities at times with some of the splits. I think your personnel dictates so much of what you do. That each of us are different at the same time, but they’ve done a good job creating explosive plays and obviously getting a win here a week or two ago when they were on the road.”
On cleaning up issues against Oklahoma
“Yeah, I think everybody could see there were major plays that changed the way that game was played. Offensively, I don’t think we punt until close to the five minute mark in the third quarter.I think six out of our first seven possessions are right around the plus-35 or further inside. And the turnovers that set them up with points off the scoop and score and or the returns off of a couple of the picks that put them in field goal range. Ultimately, we miss a field goal, 16 points there that dramatically changed that football game. And that’s certainly a credit to Oklahoma as well. At the same time that I’m saying that, and in this league, you can’t do those things. And our kids battled, fought, and continued to compete to the very end and we got to get an onside kick we went zero-for-two on those and ultimately didn’t come away with a win. There was a lot to like during the course of it too, the outcome is one thing. I thought our defense played really well all three levels of it together, communication, matching things out and run fits early in the football game. They hurt us with a couple quarterback runs in the second half but at the end of the day, the standard here is to go win those games and certainly disappointed in that.”
On if he had a reaction to being No. 25 in the initial CFP rankings
“I didn’t know where we were ranked. Certainly we’re not in control of anything at the end of the day. We’ve lost to three good football teams and had opportunities to be in and win those games. And we got to get on the right side of it here as we go finish and strong here.”
On if he treats the bye week in November different that the early bye week
“In general, we’re probably a little healthier this one than we were during the first bye week. We got some guys that are still coming back off of injury that are getting work this week. For us, it’s continued growth inside, looking inside and how we continue to grow individually and by position group in the unit.”
On if the coaching changes across the country, portal usage changes the high school recruiting cycle
“It certainly continued to change everything. Now the separation of it, portal being a little bit later and signing day right around the corner. I think everybody across the country and certainly us, you want to go finish this ‘26 class the right way.”
On if he’s glad that they’re going to one transfer portal window
“I think the benefit of it is that once you get back in January, you start your offseason — you’re truly building your team for the following fall versus having so many unknowns and moving parts after spring ball, after the spring semester.”
