Josh Heupel reveals what he's looking for from young players vying for playing time

Josh Heupel has some factors he’s gauging the young talent on Tennessee by, and it’s evident the Volunteers leader knows what he’s looking for.

Speaking with the media, Heupel revealed what he’s looking for from his young players that are vying for playing time as the season approaches.

“Body language matters. Being able to reset from the previous play and go compete, and execute on the next one,” stated Heupel. “This is a game where every play makes a difference, for all eleven that are on the field. You’re not going to win every battle, but you’ve got to be able to reset to the next play. So the ability to handle that, handle the coaching. Not make the same mistake. Continuing the progress. We’re 15 practices in right now, you’ve seen some of that from those guys. From scrimmage one to scrimmage two, a big tell is just the jump that those guys are able to make. Take some of the things that they saw in a real, live situation in the first scrimmage and apply it in scrimmage two. We’ve seen that from a bunch of those guys.

“There will be some young guys that Week 1 are going to play a bunch of minutes, there’s going to be some young guys that will continue to earn that playing time as they go through the season too. It’s a constant race against yourself to become the best that you can.”

As you can see, Josh Heupel has laid out the blueprint of how to succeed under his watch at Tennessee. Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on which players embody their coach’s ideals best, and who receives the lion-share of the snaps for the Volunteers.

Josh Heupel explains how Tennessee’s coaches create ‘fun’ during preseason practice

Josh Heupel recognizes that throughout the grind that is getting prepared for the college football season, it’s the head coach’s duty not just to ensure his team is ready, but that his players have a high morale.

Aside from winning, the Tennessee coach knows there are plenty of ways to have fun on the football field. Speaking with the media, Heupel explained how he creates fun for his athletes amid the pressure of playing on the biggest stages.

“We try to do something fun every single day when we’re out on the field,” started Heupel. “I think creating competitive situations is extremely important in that it raises the level of urgency of focus out on the practice field. So we pick different situations every single day. Our team meeting has structure to it, but there’s things that are different every day. Last night, we’ve been in a pretty good routine here of what we’re doing every day, felt like giving them a little bit of a mental break potentially if they were able to catch the football. Elijah’s the hero, as you guys could all see. Doing something fun to keep guys engaged. That’s true during training camp, I think it’s true during the season, as well.

“So you guys know around here we try to compete really hard but we have a heck of a lot of fun doing it too, and last night is a great example of it. Today being different. Being in the stadium for the scrimmage. Families being there. The afternoon’s going to play out different for them, too. So we try to keep them fresh, physically ready to compete, while straining them and making sure that we’re playing ourselves into the shape that we need to, to be ready to go play. But you can do all those things and have a heck of a lot of fun doing it.”