Tennessee Football made a splash hire by bringing in Derek Owings as the head strength and conditioning coach this past offseason. But one other important behind-the-scenes hire that Tennessee made around the same time was Director of Football Nutrition Katie O’Connor.
O’Connor joined the Tennessee program after two seasons as the Director of Football Nutrition at the University of Kansas. While with the Jayhawks, she oversaw the entire nutrition program, training table and supplemental protocols, while also baking in individualized nutrition plans for student athletes.
Owings and O’Connor’s roles go hand-in-hand as the two lead the charge into creating better, stronger, and healthier athletes to perform on the football field. Tennessee highlighted on Wednesday that since the duo took over in January, the Vols’ program has seen more than 850 pounds of muscle mass gained and more than 200 pounds of fat lost amongst the entire team.
While Owings’ intense training regime is a big part of that, equally important is O’Connor’s side of things. Weight training and conditioning are valuable tools on their own, but that has to be supplemented with good eating and nutritious fuel in the process.
And by the looks of it, the Tennessee football student-athletes are eating like kings.
Tennessee Football and O’Connor showed fans an inside look at what a typical meal looks like inside the Volunteers’ program in a new social media video on Thursday. As a fair warning, though, this might not be the best thing to watch if you’re already hungry.
fueling the growth 📈#GBO 🍊 pic.twitter.com/nmgJLhDzLb
— Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) May 7, 2026
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While speaking with Vols of the Voice Mike Keith during an interview in March, Owings mentioned the nutrition side of things multiple times during the 17-minute conversation. And quite often, he began his list with the importance of it.
“We made sure they understood what the expectations were, whether it was nutrition, training, body weight, standards, how we live our life, treatment,” Owings said of his initial message to the team. “But that’ll be an evolving process as we go… At the end of the day, our job is to win football games. We don’t get wins based on how many guys can bench press 400 pounds, squat 500 pounds. Ultimately, the end goal is to win a championship, period. What steps do we need to take to get there? That’s nutrition, it’s recovery, it’s practice plans, it’s how do we travel, how do we – okay, if it’s an 8 o’ clock Saturday night game, what are we doing during the day to make sure they’re staying mentally and physically sharp?”
Owings and O’Connor’s combined work will help make Tennessee a bigger, stronger, and faster football team. And the process starts now, during the offseason.
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