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.

The Vols are hoping that Young’s strides as a leader and as a player can help propel them to the next level. Tennessee had a huge turnaround last year improving from 3-7 to 7-6. And Young along with the rest of the Volunteers front could be a key catalyst in getting them over the hump, as Heupel can’t wait to watch them work in camp and see it translate in their opener Sept. 1.

“Can’t wait to see him in some of the one-on-one pass rush situations and some of the third and long periods. We need him to take a step and we need Tyler Baron, we need Roman to take a step, and the young guys I talked about as well. A year ago up until maybe the last two weeks of the season we were leading the country in tackles for loss, we had guys in third and long, if you’re going to play defensive football that’s where you wanna be at. A part of us getting better in that situation is being able to affect the quarterback with a four-man rush. That comes from individuals that can master the fundamentals of technique and be elite at getting to the quarterback,” Heupel said.