Joe Milton on his time at Tennessee: 'They set you up for the NFL'

Former Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joe Milton is working on making his NFL dream come true with the New England Patriots. Luckily, he believes that he was set up for success at the next level thanks to his time in Knoxville.

Milton was speaking with media members following an OTA when he broke down the reasons why his time at Tennessee was so important to set him up for success in the NFL.

“Tennessee, you learn how to grow fast,” Joe Milton said. “We kind of had the same schedule as we have it here. Do everything in the morning and then your whole afternoon you’d be off, other than the rookie player development meetings, but other than that Tennessee, they set you up for the NFL.”

Joe Milton played for head coach Josh Heupel during his three seasons with the Volunteers. As a coach, Heupel is known for his up-tempo offenses that spread the field, and in many cases, success comes down to quick pre-snap reads by the quarterback.

“Just the time off, how you manage your time, how you take care of your body, the way that you study, you have to be ready for it because at Tennessee we ran a fast-paced offense,” Milton said. “You have to understand where guys are going and what they’re doing. So, same thing as here. You have to understand where guys are going and be able to say it in the huddle.”

Prior to playing for Josh Heupel at Tennessee, Joe Milton was a quarterback at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh. Between his time at both schools, Milton played in 43 games. During that time, he threw for 5,353 yards and 37 touchdowns. The majority of that production came in 2023 when he became Tennessee’s full-time starter.

For Patriots executive Eliot Wolf, it was an obvious choice to take Milton in the sixth round of the draft due to his raw talent alone.

“It was just one of those picks where there was too much talent in him to pass that up,” Wolf said.

Joe Milton was the second quarterback the Patriots took during the 2024 NFL Draft. The first, Drake Maye, was the third overall pick and is expected to be the team’s franchise quarterback moving forward. On top of that, the team also has veteran quarterbacks Jacoby Brissett and Bailey Zappe on the roster to compete for the starting job. However, it’s unlikely the team carries all four into the regular season.