Josh Heupel explains why 'the best is yet to come' for Tennessee
Josh Heupel was hired at Tennessee in January 2021, a week after the Vols had hired a new athletic director in Danny White. The NCAA investigation circling former head coach Jeremy Pruitt meant cleaning house in Knoxville after a three-win season in 2020.
All Heupel has done since then is take Tennessee back to a bowl game in Year 1, winning seven games, then start 8-0 in Year 2, on the way to the first 11-win season for the Vols since 2001.
The exclamation point Friday night was the 31-14 win over Clemson in the Capital One Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium. On the field after the win, Heupel said “the best is yet to come” for his Tennessee football program.
He expanded on that statement during his postgame press conference.
“I just know that where we started,” Heupel said, “where we’ve gotten to, but there’s so much left out there for us. It’s in individual habits, it’s in us continuing to improve in communication as coaches, refining what we’re doing inside of our building, as we continue to develop depth inside of our program, recruit.”
Tennessee’s two-year rebuild a ‘great lesson’ in facing adversity
Heupel signed the 12th-ranked recruiting class in 2023, coming in at No. 5 in the SEC. The group is headlined by five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava, the No. 2 overall prospect in the country in the On3 ratings, and five-star defensive lineman Daevin Hobbs, ranked No. 20 overall.
The class enters a program that won 10 games in the regular season for the first time since 2003, snapped a five-year losing streak to Florida, beat Alabama for the first time since 2007 and went to a New Years Six bowl game for the first time in the College Football Playoff era.
The outside perception has changed drastically.
“One of the great lessons,” Heupel said, “I said this to the football team after the game tonight, is two years ago there was so much outside noise that wasn’t necessarily positive, and none of those guys paid attention to it.
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“They decided collectively and individually to go accomplish something, and they worked for it.”
Josh Heupel: Vols can ‘continue to climb as a program’
Tennessee started the season with eight straight wins, coming in at No. 1 in the first College Football Playoff Top 25 of the season. The Vols lost 27-13 at Georgia and then had their playoff hopes dashed in a loss at South Carolina two weeks later.
Still, they bounced back with a 56-0 win at Vanderbilt to close the regular-season schedule, then handled Clemson for the program’s first Orange Bowl win since 1939.
“If you set your mind to something and you work, you really can go up and accomplish anything,” Heupel said. “That’s a great lesson for this football program, but it’s a great lesson for these guys as they move into life.”
Tennessee is just getting started with that mindset.
“As we continue to move forward,” Heupel said, “everybody inside that locker room understands there’s a whole lot left out there for us that we can improve upon, that we can control, that can help us continue to climb as a program.”
