'No pressure, Joe': ESPN names Joe Milton most important player in College Football Playoff race
Joe Milton III has been the biggest talking point surrounding Tennessee football since the Vols left Hard Rock Stadium in Miami after beating Clemson 31-14 in the Orange Bowl in December.
How would the fifth-year senior be able to step in for Hendon Hooker, who spent the last two seasons setting records and playing like a Heisman Trophy favorite?
But it’s a storyline that’s stretches far outside Knoxville. According to ESPN, Milton is the No. 1 most important player in the 2023 College Football Playoff race.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly wrote Thursday that “it couldn’t be anyone else” after ranking Milton No. 1 ahead of Penn State quarterback Drew Allar, Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord and Alabama quarterback Tyler Buchner.
“Milton gets a third chance to become a star after misfiring at Michigan in 2020 and Tennessee in 2021,” Connelly wrote, “and whether he succeeds or fails — whether Tennessee becomes a potential Georgia or Alabama spoiler or an outright SEC favorite — we’ll know why.”
Joe Milton III last season: 971 yards, 10 TDs, 0 INTs
Last season Milton passed for 971 yards and 10 touchdowns, completing 65 percent of his passes over nine games while playing behind Hooker. He started in Tennessee’s 56-0 win in the regular-season finale at Vanderbilt a week after Hooker’s season-ending ACL tear, throwing for 147 yards and a touchdown while the Vols rushed for 362 yards and six touchdowns as a team.
Milton was named the Orange Bowl MVP after throwing for 251 yards and three touchdowns to lead Tennessee to the win over Clemson, connecting with Ramel Keyton, Squirrel White and Bru McCoy while the Vols were playing without Jalin Hyatt and Cedric Tillman.
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“I’m extremely, extremely confident,” Milton said while meeting with reporters at SEC Media Days in Nashville in July. “I trust the guys around me. I trust my coaches to go through the preparation with me confidently. I’m extremely confident, and I’m ready for it.”
If Joe Milton succeeds, ‘forget spoiler talk and put (Tennessee) in the national title conversation’
Milton’s key to success or failure in his final season at Tennessee, according to ESPN, will come down to how quickly he processes and operates in Josh Heupel’s uptempo offense.
“If he still takes too many sacks and toes the wrong side of the line between patience and slow decision-making,” Connelly wrote, “he’ll probably end the year on the bench behind five-star freshman Nico Iamaleava.
“But if he’s firing quickly to Ramel Keyton, Bru McCoy and Squirrel White and fully harnessing the explosiveness of both Josh Heupel’s offense and his own right arm — he’s almost certainly got the strongest arm in college football — then the sky’s the limit for Tennessee. Forget spoiler talk and put them in the national title conversation.
“No pressure, Joe.”
