Josh Heupel addresses the critical jump needed for Tennessee in Year 2

Tennessee demanded everyone’s attention during Josh Heupel’s first season, having much more success than anyone expected. Heupel knows that he can’t sit back on one good season, though. A critical jump is needed for the Volunteers in year two.

“It can be the greatest from game one to game two, year one to year two can be the greatest push of growth inside of your program,” Josh Heupel said. “But it comes down to your work habits every single day. I am proud of what we’ve done up until this point. We have a long ways to go before we kick off on opening night.”

In particular, Josh Heupel knows that Tennessee needs to improve defensively. This can be difficult, given the pace of his offense, though. Heupel also points out that the defense had a number of strengths in 2021.

“For us defensively, there’s a lot of things that we did extremely well. You look at our tackles for loss, getting people into third-and-long. We got to be better in third-and-long situations, which you’re playing where you want to defensively when you’re in that position. We got to get better in the red zone, too, forcing field goals and creating negatives there, not giving up seven points.”

“Part of that is being able to affect the quarterback not just with pressures but with a four-man rush,” Josh Heupel continued. “We got to have some competition on the defensive line. I think we’ve certainly gained in the depth that we have inside of our program.”

Josh Heupel also pointed out that one of the biggest problems he faced when he first got to Tennessee was the amount of players on the roster. With a fraction of the players other teams had, the Volunteers didn’t have close to the depth that their conference rivals did.

“A year ago we were with 69 scholarship players as we opened fall training camp. We were the thinnest football team in America, hands down, not even close. You look across America, many were playing with 90 to 95 because of COVID seniors. We’re deeper than we were. We’re not as deep as we need to be. We’ll still be under 85. But I think the depth, the competition, the year inside of our system, inside strength and conditioning, the ability to strain, finish, focus at the end of football games should allow us to take a step defensively for sure.”

Josh Heupel knows the task ahead of him. The question is whether he can successfully address these issues ahead of his second season.