One of the biggest differences in Tennessee football this offseason was the change in the weight room. Josh Heupel hired a new Director of Sports Performance, Derek Owings, fresh off winning a national title with Indiana.
Owings’ approach to building up the roster is already seeming to pay off. In just the early period of team workouts and changes to diet and nutrition, he said in an interview with Voice of the Vols Mike Keith that there have already been a lot of players who have added 15 pounds of muscle.
That’s still with half a year of offseason practices to go to get the team in shape to play the gauntlet of a schedule that includes nine SEC games, Georgia Tech and two additional regular-season matchups.
“Absolutely,” Owings said on if Tennessee will be a bigger team this year. “We’ve had a lot of guys that have already added 15 pounds of muscle in a six-and-a-half week training block.”
going one on one with new Director of Sports Performance @owingsderek
Don’t miss the full episode Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Athletics YouTube channel pic.twitter.com/TgjvPo7DXn
— Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) March 9, 2026
More From RTI: Former Vol Cornerback Alontae Taylor Reportedly Signing With Tennessee Titans, Returning to the Volunteer State
Not every player needs to put on more muscle and weight, though. Owings dove into determining what each player needs, and finding that balance to make sure they’re at their best on the football field.
Sometimes, it’s adding weight. Sometimes, it’s leaning out and making sure there’s more speed and explosiveness.
“Everything we do has to fit together like a puzzle,” Owings said. “The reason why we track speed every single week, we track power every single week, vertical jump, to make sure the weight we are putting on is good weight. What makes these guys great is because they’re athletic, they’re twitchy and they’re good football players. As soon as we make them too big and it takes away from those qualities, now we’re taking away from football. So, we want to enhance those abilities, not hurt them.
“It’s the constantly tracking week-to-week to make sure the weight we are putting on is good weight. If we get to a point where, hey, this kid is too big, we’re getting slower, then we got to pull back, keep him there, until we can start increasing that speed, that power, that explosiveness again, then we can see if we can keep improving. There’s some kids, they’re at a good body weight. We got to get leaner, we’ll get faster, we’ll get more powerful, but we don’t need this kid to be heavier than what he is right now.”
The full interview from Keith with Owings is set to be released on the Tennessee Athletics YouTube channel on Tuesday morning.
More To Follow: Tennessee women’s basketball
