Tennessee football’s regular season came to a close on Saturday afternoon as the Vols lost to Vanderbilt 45-24 in a blowout at Neyland Stadium. The game was tied at halftime before Vanderbilt dominated the second half 24-3 and coasted to a victory.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel discussed the poor showing, what’s coming up in the early part of the offseason and much more. Here’s everything Heupel said.
More From RTI: Four Quick Takeaways As Vanderbilt Routs Tennessee Football To Close Regular Season
Opening Statement
“Extremely disappointing second half leads to a extremely disappointing ultimate result. And coaches and players all play a part in it. So give (Vanderbilt) credit, but extremely disappointing in what we did in the second half.”
On Diego Pavia’s production and what Tennessee’s defense was failing to do against him
“A couple of them, he makes a good play. We can’t get off a block on the interior and a couple scramble big plays. We misfit a couple things into to the boundary. So it’s a combination of all those things that ultimately lead to him having the game that he does with his feet.”
On Tennessee’s offense in the second half and what went wrong
“Yeah, I think throughout the game there was some execution things that we didn’t handle. Didn’t handle small details in the scope of some of the structures of what they did that limit that or eliminate a play. So.”
On Tennessee’s defense giving up nearly 600 yards, defensive struggles this season and what needs to change moving forward
“I mean ultimately the performance we had tonight is not anywhere near the standard of what Tennessee football is. And there’s been a lot of things that we’ve had to deal with, in the beginning, middle parts of the season. Felt like we took some steps here last couple weeks, but this one just wrapped up a few seconds ago. It’s my job to evaluate everything inside of our program and, you know, I told our players we’ve had some disappointing results, but the second half was extremely disappointing. Coaches and players, not just one.”
On Tennessee’s defensive issues in the second half, what went wrong
“Ultimately you look at the run game, you know what I mean? So it starts there. Getting off the field on third down. End of the first half, got a stop, not smart football, give another set of downs and they get seven instead of kicking a field going. It’s all those little things that add up to a result that you don’t like. And it looks like that on the scoreboard. This game, at this level, it’s small details.”
On the roughing the passer call on Jalen McMurray
“Yeah, I didn’t truly see the play. They just said we hit him in the head.”
On the disappointment losing three home games
“Really disappointing that we didn’t play the way that we’re capable of and need to and had inside of this stadium.”
On if this team was hard to get a grasp of because of the lack of consistency
“I thought we took some steps during the course of the year. Guys were thrust into some roles probably earlier than you would want. Not that they weren’t gonna play, but the amount of time that they were gonna play and go back to the previous three Saturdays where you don’t like the result. Guys competed extremely hard. We didn’t always play extremely smart. There’s a play that drastically changes the game and the way that it’s played. So welcome to life and in this league. You got to be on the right side of those things.”
On if he saw anything at halftime that made him think that second half was coming
“No, absolutely not. Otherwise I would’ve addressed that at halftime as we were getting ready to go out. Again, the details in it and execution, all of us together got to be better.”
On what the next two weeks is like for the staff
“We’ll have a chance to meet with our guys and move forward as a program and revisit the season and look, look backwards before we look forwards too.”
On what all goes into the personnel evaluation at the end of the season
“Our personnel evaluation, we’ll do that as an entire program and I’ll certainly take a hard look at all of it.”
On having to be ready for potential job openings on his staff, the quick turnaround to signing day
“The landscape of college football has drastically changed. It’s changed from a year ago as far as portal windows and all of that. So prepare and handle those things as they come.”
One Response
Definitely got plenty of struggles on defense.. Vandy showed their hand on defense practically the whole game, and it appeared that Tenn. didn’t change anything up or make any adjustments on offense.. Reevaluation on both side of the ball for sure!