Josh Heupel discusses how strong year for Tennessee athletics has elevated campus energy

It has been a successful year for Tennessee athletics, and Volunteers football coach Josh Heupel knows it. Tennessee not only made a bowl game in Heupel’s inaugural year, but also saw its baseball team win the SEC Tournament and its men’s and women’s basketball teams make the NCAA Tournament.

The recent success has gotten a lot of students and fans excited, and Heupel can feel it. During a recent interview with ESPN, the Volunteers football coach explained how the energy has impacted the football team.

You can feel that positive energy, and it surrounds our program, the foundation that we built last year across this state,” Heupel said. “I think people are proud of how we played a year ago. We played really hard, and that’s the first step. We all want to play better and win more ballgames, and I think we’ve set ourselves up to have a great season. This is a great time to be at Tennessee, the leadership that we have on campus and the way people have rallied around what we’re all doing here. Man, I can’t wait, and we can’t be more excited about the fall.”

In its first season under Josh Heupel, Tennessee finished with a 7-6 record and lost in the Music City Bowl to Purdue. The Volunteers are set to return starting quarterback Hendon Hooker in Year 2 as well as leading receiver Cedric Tillman. After finishing this past season second in the SEC in scoring offense, Tennessee will look to maintain that level of dominance in Heupel’s second season.

The Volunteers also added former USC receiver Bru McCoy and Florida offensive tackle Gerald Mincey through the transfer portal. Those additions will certainly help as they try to improve on their third-place finish in the SEC East this past season.

Heupel has already proved his offensive prowess at UCF after leading the Knights to a 28-8 record across three seasons from 2018-20. After his first year in Knoxville got off to a similar start, he’ll hope to keep the success going in 2022. That will be a tall task, however, as defending champion Georgia is in the same division as the Volunteers, among other strong teams.

Tennessee is set to open the 2022 season on Sept. 1 against Ball State.