Hendon Hooker calls final Tennessee home game 'bittersweet'

The Tennessee Volunteers will play their last home game of the season this Saturday against the Missouri Tigers. But most importantly, it’ll be the final home game for senior quarterback Hendon Hooker. In his final season with the Volunteers, Hooker has made historical moments that will last a lifetime. As he gears up for his final performance in Neyland Stadium, the senior reminisced on his time at Tennessee and admits that this game is “bittersweet.”

“I envision it being just another day at the office, like we say. But it’s my last time in Neyland,” said Hooker. “It’s a real bittersweet (moment); very excited to see a lot of my family members there that haven’t got a chance to see me play since I was little or in high school. So, it’s going to be a day for the family and a day for the Vols just to go out there and enjoy Neyland.”

Hooker has had a season full of memories and might not be done yet. After his performance against the Alabama Crimson Tide earlier in the season, he catapulted himself to the forefront of the Heisman Trophy conversation. Despite the stumble against Georgia this past Saturday, if the superstar senior quarterback can continue on the path he was on before that game, he will likely finish this season with some extra hardware, adding to his memories for this season.

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Hooker offers explanation for Georgia loss

Tennessee took their first loss of the 2022 season on Saturday in their 27-13 defeat to Georgia. The Volunteer offense was stifled in Athens with what was by far their lowest point total of the season. Considering their defense gave up big plays to the Bulldogs too, it was a poor performance across the board for UT. In his opinion, Hendon Hooker says that a lot of what happened last weekend was because of what Tennessee did to themselves.

Hooker spoke about the mistakes that Tennessee made during his press conference on Monday. He said the Bulldogs deserve their due credit. However, he knows he and his teammates didn’t do what they had to win the primetime matchup.

“Just a lot of self-inflicted mistakes. Georgia came out and played a great game. Hats off to those guys. But we really definitely left a lot of plays out there from just us not doing things what we’d normally do on a daily basis,” said Hooker. “It comes back to little things, paying attention to detail. And we didn’t do that on Saturday.”