Josh Heupel opens up on importance of Jaylen Wright possibly reaching 1,000 yards

As Tennessee heads into its season finale running back Jaylen Wright will be closing in on the 1,000-yard mark rushing.

Should he eclipse the mark, he’d be the first Tennessee running back to do so since Jalen Hurd in 2015. It’s quite a feat, one his head coach hopes comes to fruition on Saturday against Vanderbilt.

“Well for him just his growth as a player, the work that he’s put into it to be in a position to obtain that I think is important to him,” coach Josh Heupel said. “He probably wouldn’t say that if he was up here, but I certainly would say it for him.”

Jaylen Wright has had three games this season where the opposing defense has really put the clamps down on him, but other than that he’s been tremendous. He has six games with at least 100 yards rushing, pushing him closer to the cusp of 1,000 yards.

As things stand, Wright has 938 yards, needing only 62 more to hit the 1,000-yard mark.

Heupel has seen his young running back develop during his time in Knoxville, too. He wants to see the 1,000-yard mark fall because it’d be a just reward for Jaylen Wright.

“Proud of a young guy that when we got here was a fast kid that just tried to run around everybody, now has got great patience, great vision, and still has the home run speed to take it the distance,” Heupel said.

Josh Heupel shares why Nico Iamaleava didn’t play against Georgia

Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava could still redshirt his freshman season with only three appearances in 2023. However, that thought isn’t the only reason he didn’t see the field against Georgia this past weekend, according to Josh Heupel.

During his postgame press conference, Heupel noted that that plan may have played into why the five-star freshman didn’t take any snaps against the Bulldogs on Saturday. With that said, with the Volunteers down as much as 28, he said they also wanted to be careful about what circumstances that they just dropped him into against the No. 1 team in the nation.

“Well, at this point, just because there’s only one regular season (game left)?” said Heupel. “There’s a lot of variables that are taking place outside on that field today and what type of situation we want to put him in.”

Iamaleava made his trio of appearances against Virginia in the season opener, versus UTSA in their fourth game, and against UConn in the first game of November. In that time, he has completed seven passes on 14 attempts for 97 yards and a touchdown. Essentially all of that production came in the 56-point blowout of the Huskies as he went 5-9 for 89 yards and the score.

With one game to go and a bowl matchup as well, Iamaleava may find himself out there at least one more time before the end of the season. Still, with him as the program’s future at quarterback, there’s plenty of reasons that Heupel and the Vols have to consider when it comes to when or how they may employ him.

And of course Iamaleava can always lean on Jaylen Wright if he does make an appearance.

On3’s Matt Connolly also contributed to this report.