Josh Heupel addresses Joe Milton's continued improvement through camp

This season, Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton is going to take over the reins of head coach Josh Heupel’s explosive and fast offense. With the season rapidly approaching, Heupel has already seen a ton of improvement in Milton’s game.

As Heupel explained, Tennessee has challenged Milton this Fall Camp and he has risen to those challenges.

“You put quarterbacks in tough situations and in some situations during practice you put them in the harder spots that they could be in,” Josh Heupel said. “He’s continued to grow in his understanding of Football 101. Understanding when can I hang in the pocket? When’s it time to get rid of the football and make sure that in a certain situation, whether we’re backed up or in field goal range where you’ve got three, you’re trying to get seven. Understanding the timing and how to play smart football in those situations.”

Joe Milton is going to be one of the most veteran quarterbacks in the SEC. He was a four-star recruit in the 2018 cycle, having started his career at Michigan. He transferred to Tennessee ahead of Heupel’s first season in Knoxville and took over as the starter to end the 2022 season when Hendon Hooker was injured, beating Vanderbilt and Clemson to win an Orange Bowl.

“He’s continued to grow. Love what he’s done. You know, the other quarterbacks in the room have continued to grow as we’ve put them in a lot of situations,” Heupel said.

“I think that’s one the things I’ve done as a head coach is try to create more situational awareness and actually get more reps in those situations. That’s been a part of [not just] helping those guys but all 125 in the locker room.”

Josh Heupel on how ready Nico Iamaleava is to play

Behind Joe Milton this season will be the highly-touted recruit, Nico Iamaleava. With only a couple of weeks before Tennessee starts its season, Josh Heupel shared how ready he is to actually play in a game.

“I think he’s ready to play at a really high level. All young quarterbacks, it’s different when you get out there and it’s live bullets and you don’t have a red jersey on. But feel really good about where he’s at. Command of our offense, being a really sound decision-maker, fundamentally being able to get himself in a good position to be consistently accurate with the ball. I like what he’s done,” Heupel said.

“As a young man coming into the program understanding the standards that we have here but the demands of playing quarterback at this level. Being able to start to grasp and understand what’s going on from us up front, protections, defensive structure, being able to see, and recognize, and anticipate, and see post-snap rotations from the back end.”