Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel discusses Vols' historic 2022 season following a 56-0 throttling of Vanderbilt

The Tennessee Volunteers thoroughly dominated the Vanderbilt Commodores in every way, shape, and form on Saturday night. The Vols jumped out to a commanding 21-0 advantage and halftime and poured it on even more in the second half. After the dust finally cleared, Tennessee won 56-0 in blowout fashion, with many of their backups playing at several positions. The victory gave the Tennessee program their first 10-win regular season since 2003. Following the rout of the ‘Dores, Volunteers’ head coach Josh Heupel spoke with SEC Network’s Cole Cubelic about his team’s historic 2022 campaign.

Josh Heupel discussed Tennessee’s historic season

He discussed his emotions following soundly whipping a rival and earning his team’s 10th win of the 2022 campaign.

“This is a great win for our program. A lot’s been made about the culture in the locker room or whatever it might be. This is a culture win, man. Two years ago when I took this job, I didn’t think we’d be here at 10 wins in year two. Played the way that we did in all three phases of the game. You know, we’re far from perfect. We’ve got a lot of ways we can grow, but I’m extremely proud of this football team. Our staff. Our players. The future’s bright. [This is a] team that’s really connected and competes extremely hard for each other, man. They love one another. And I love competing with these guys,” Heupel said.

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He discussed the jump in confidence that he’s seen in the Tennessee program from year one to year two.

“Yeah, we expect to win. This group works in a way and has since we got from the bowl game last year, worked in a way to expect to win. And we haven’t been perfect. There’s a whole lot of things we could have been better at, but man, you talk about resiliency, competitive nature, play for one another. I’ll go to battle with these guys every day,” Heupel said.

The Tennessee head coach then discussed how impressed he was with his team battling through so many injuries along the roster on Saturday night.

“Next man up mentality. There’s no excuses in this game. They don’t put an asterisk based on who played and who didn’t. Hendon’s a special player. We miss him. But his energy was a part of our locker room, a part of this football team tonight. We’re missing other guys, in particular out on the perimeter. The guys played hard, competed. They love playing football, man. I love this group,” Heupel said.

There’s a lot to love about the 2022 season for the Volunteer faithful. This team reached heights the program hasn’t seen in nearly two decades and won’t be soon forgotten. Josh Heupel also stamped his name in Tennessee football lore on Saturday night. He became just the third head coach in the last 60 years to lead the Volunteers to 10-plus wins in their first or second season with the program. Phillip Fulmer and Bill Battle were the other two coaches to accomplish such a feat, per the SEC Network broadcast.