While it wasn’t necessarily the blowout performance some expected, Tennessee football still walked away with a commanding 42-9 win over New Mexico State on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium. After the game, Vols quarterback Joey Aguilar met with the media to give his thoughts.
He was asked about offensive woes, his own mistakes, the upcoming game against Florida and more.
Here’s what he said.
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On his faith
“Personally, a lot of my journey was hard and tough. And most of the time you’re by yourself, and that’s when you can talk to God and talk to Jesus and really get an understanding and focus on what His ultimate plan is. And going into games like this, not playing my best and being super frustrated at halftime, came in, had some time to myself, talked to Him and had to reset. It helps a lot. He’s the best thing in my life. Without Him, I wouldn’t have anything that I have now. So I give all praises to Him. And to have a team and be around people that share the same faith and strive to be the best they can be in that area is awesome to be around.”
On practices this week Josh Heupel didn’t like
“Just energy all around. And being the leader, it starts with me not being elite at practice all day. And that causes me to come out here and have a game that I did today, not the best. And super frustrated with that on myself personally. A lot of good stuff that we did, but that’s on me to carry that throughout the week and bring it in on Saturdays.”
On if that will be corrected before playing Florida
“It’s just how you practice, how you play. And you’ve got to take advantage of it. We got two more games guaranteed, and they’re going to be fun games, Florida and Vanderbilt, big rivalry games. So you just got to prepare, really tomorrow on Sunday with your recovery. And watch this game and learn and grow. And then everything starts to kick off Monday, and just have great energy and come to compete.”
On correcting mistakes on the road at Florida
“Just keep trusting myself, keep trusting my players. Sometimes I throw a bad ball, sometimes I don’t. And defense will make a play, sometimes they won’t. So just go out there and just keep the confidence that I have and just go out there and play.”
On the yardage not being as high as usual for the offense
“I mean, like I said, definitely frustrating, especially on my part. Not being elite enough to put the offense in a position to score or just keep us on the field. So personally, definitely frustrating, but it’s just things that we can fix with just mental and just details of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
On how he assesses freshman QB George MacIntyre
“The quarterback room, we try to help each other out as much as possible. And being the older guy, obviously, they ask me questions about film, in-game, be on the sideline, kind of ask what I see, and then vice versa, ask what they see. But, man, from the day I got here to now, I mean, both of them grew a whole lot. It’s kind of cool to be the older guy and have them kind of learn under me. I kind of been in that situation kind of, not really, but to know how bright a future that both of them have. And he got a couple reps out there. He didn’t get probably as much as he wanted, but time on the clock kind of took away from that. But he’s dialed into his details of what he has to accomplish and I just can’t wait to see when he gets the full go.”
On how he deals with a postgame when he’s frustrated
“Just got to just get away from it a little bit. I feel like if I go watch film right now, I’ll probably get even more mad at myself. But just get away from it. Enjoy the fam right now. And then tomorrow morning, just go back in the office and break down what I got to do better.”
On cornerback William Wright scoring a touchdown
“Me personally, coming in and just a short amount of time trying to learn everybody’s story, his is definitely cool. Like he said, being patient. And to go out there and see him make plays. He was out there, a great special team player, making plays on there. And then he gets out there on defense and everything just comes naturally. He went out there, made some plays on D and then gets the pick-six to get rewarded. So I’m very happy for him.”
