'We're not complacent': Vols not resting on last season's success
Forget the 11 Tennessee wins last season. Forget the 8-0 start and the Vols being ranked No. 1 in the College Football Playoff Top 25 in November. Forget the home wins over Alabama and Florida and the thumping of LSU in Baton Rouge.
Forget the Orange Bowl win over Clemson, too.
Tennessee players last week at SEC Media Days weren’t all that interested in talking about what happened during a magical 2022 season.
“We had a good year last year,” defensive lineman Omari Thomas said, “but we have to turn that page. We can’t keep living in the past. We understand what happened last year, but we’re looking to do big things this year.”
Omari Thomas: ‘We just know we have to continue to grow’
The Vols turned the page long ago, but it officially turns against Virginia on September 2 (Noon ET, ABC) in the season opener at Nissan Stadium in Nashville.
“That’s a good team,” Thomas said. “We’re just looking real forward to playing those guys.”
Tennessee, the way Thomas described it, is a hungry team. The Vols didn’t get their fill in 2022.
“Yeah,” Thomas said, “we’re not being complacent. We understand that everything just has to fall the way we want it to fall. We just know we have to continue to grow.”
Tennessee on Friday was picked to finish fourth in the SEC and second in the SEC East, receiving 14 first-place votes in the division. Georgia, the defending back-to-back champion, received 181 votes to win the SEC and 256 votes to win the SEC East.
That crown is the goal the Vols have their eyes set on first. And Josh Heupel makes sure his team knows it.
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“The goal will be to win the SEC East,” redshirt senior tight end Jacob Warren said on Thursday in Nashville. “If you do that, that sets you up to go do everything you want. Opportunity to play in the SEC championship, get the opportunity if you win that to go play in the national championship.
“… If we win those games, you set yourself up for everything you want. That’s what he means when he says we didn’t get the job done. We had a great season. A lot of people outside the program wouldn’t have expected us to have won 11 games last year, go to New Year’s Six bowl, win the Orange Bowl.”
Up Next: Tennessee vs. Virginia, September 2, Nissan Stadium Nashville
Those same people would say Tennessee’s 2022 season — it was the program’s first 11-win season since 2001 and the first New Years Six bowl appearance in the College Football Playoff Era — checked every goal and then some.
The Vols disagree.
“A lot of people from the outside would say, ‘That’s a good job, you probably reached all your goals, did everything you were looking out to do,’” Warren said. “It’s not the case.
“Of course, that’s last year. We’ve done a good job of resetting. But now the focus is on winning the SEC East and doing everything we can to get ourselves in that position.”
