Josh Heupel explains why Tennessee will have a better pass rush in 2022

Tennessee took a major leap last season and made a ton of improvements on both sides of the ball, and head coach Josh Heupel believes they will improve more specifically in their pass rush. Heupel detailed how his pass rushers improved this offseason, how coaches Rodney Gardner and Mike Ekler have developed the unit, and how their young talent can contribute.

“I do just from their functional movement, individually their ability to bend, explosiveness out of their stance, the fundamentals. Coach Gardner and coach Ekler have helped develop all off season and then some young guys that have come into our program too that we believe as the season unfolds will be able to help us in some of those situations. So depth, the growth of them individually, some young guys coming in, I do believe that we’ll be better being able to apply pressure with the quarterback without using pressures to do that,” Heupel said.

CLICK HERE to subscribe for FREE to the On3 YouTube channel

Defensive coordinator Tim Banks improved the group drastically last season in his first season at the position. Up front, the Volunteers led the nation in tackles for loss for most of the season, led by standouts Byron Young and Jeremy Banks who finished the season with 11.5 tackles for loss each.

If this duo along with others can increase their output in the pass rushing game by generating quarterback hurries and sacks, we may see the Vols climb their way towards the top of the conference ranks on the defensive side of the ball.

Josh Heupel reveals how Byron Young has taken big leap on, off the field

Tennessee edge rusher Byron Young proved himself as one of the nation’s most disruptive forces last season, and this offseason head coach Josh Heupel said that he’s been taking his game to the next level both on and off the field.

“A guy that to me, and I’m going to talk about him physically here in a minute, but just leadership, communication, trust, just inside of the building man he’s taking a whole ‘nother step as just a person and a human being and a leader,” Heupel said. “Really proud of what he’s done coming into his own, you know a mid-year kid a year ago when we first got here I actually recruited him at the previous stop and love what he did in year one but I do think because of how he’s grown off the field and what he’s done just continuing to transform his body, added weight, leaned up, his ability to bend I think is much better at this point.”

Defensive coordinator Tim Banks also spoke on Young’s development not only as a player, but as a leader of the team.

“I would say first just from a leadership perspective, we put him in some different situations during the offseason where he had to be more verbal and I thought he answered the bell. I don’t think that was his natural instinct is to be able to lead from the front, but he’s worked very hard to be very vocal and I think as he’s become more vocal, he’s become more confident,” Banks said.

Young was voted Preseason All-SEC first team by the media, as he racked up 46 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss, and 5.5 sacks last season, and according to his coaches has been working to increase those numbers even more. 

“He obviously has a skillset, he plays extremely hard. I think he worked very hard to try to refine his technique and his overall knowledge of the game and I think we’ll start to see that pay some dividends moving forward,” Banks said.