What Josh Heupel said about Tennessee-UTSA during Thursday's press conference

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel spoke with reporters Thursday afternoon for the final time before No. 23 Tennessee (2-1) hosts UTSA (1-2) on Saturday (4 p.m. Eastern Time, SEC Network) at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. Here’s everything Heupel said while previewing the game and updating the progress of his team:

What Tennessee has seen from UTSA quarterbacks Frank Harris and Eddie Lee Marburger

“They’re a little bit different. At end of the day, you have to prepare for both of them. At the end of the day, it is a lot about us though, too. The things that showed up last week, we got beat disciplined and then go make plays. And that comes down to winning one-on-one situations.”

If there’s been any change in the status of Tennessee offensive lineman Gerald Mincey

“Yeah, Gerald has been with us all week long. He’ll play on Saturday. Cooper’s been with us all week long too. He was last week. At the end of the day, he’s a little bit of a game-time decision. It’s kind of based on how he’s feeling at that point.”

What he could adjust to help Tennessee’s communication be more efficient on game days

“Some of the things that we do, at the end of the day, how we’ve operated offense, defense, special teams, we’ve done that, done it at a high level. Guys got to take ownership of it as well and make sure that we are on the same (page).”

How to keep a quarterback’s confidence up when there may be outside criticism of his play, how he can lean on his own experience with that

“Yeah, nobody was ever critical of me, playing quarterback. I didn’t, you know, deal with that situation. Listen, and it is for everybody in the building, right? If you think your value is based off of outside opinion when it’s going well or when it hasn’t gone as well as you would like it to, you’re putting yourself in a situation to be up and down. Be consistent in your preparation every single week. The end of your routine doesn’t ensure that you’re gonna play perfect.
“It’s hard in this game to do that. You got 11 guys on the other side of the football, you got strategy from the coaches. At the end of the day, you prepare the best you can to put yourself in a position to go play your best. Joe’s got things that he can do better, but the guys around have gotta do things better too. And at the end of the day, if you’re in second-and-20 all day, it makes things real difficult. So, offensively, we gotta control the control both. You can’t have a bunch of self-inflicted wounds. You gotta play smart football, you do that, you give yourself a chance to move the football and score points.”

The progress of the rotation on Tennessee’s offensive line

“The guys that have been in the rotation, we continue to anticipate play. I said it early in the week, this week, the way the game unfolded last week, we as a coaching staff probably didn’t do a good enough job of rotating. And sometimes the flow of the game can dictate some of that as well too. The guys that are going to play, you play at high level. The developmental guys that we have inside of our program, listen, you gotta continue to prepare and get yourself ready to go play at a really high level when you get your opportunity. So as the season goes on, yeah, we want those guys to continue to develop and put themselves in position to play.”

The availability of Tennessee defensive back Doneiko Slaughter for Saturday’s game

“Yeah, he should be available for this football game.”

Having more offensive penalties this season than last year

“Yeah, we charted every single practice since I I’ve been here. But certainly this year too from spring ball to training camp, all those things, why it transpired the way that it did last week, I don’t have an exact reason. I do think the momentum of the game, we didn’t reset from play to play and you can’t do that in this game. That was a point of emphasis just in my communication to them last week. We do have new guys inside of what we’re doing. You look at the left side of the offense, from center all the way over, those are new guys inside of our system. Tight ends are new. So some of those things are growing pains and when I say growing pains, not that you have to have those things during the course of the season, man, they gotta settle in. They gotta do their job at a high level.”

If it’s hard for a team to fix tackling issues during the season

“Yeah , you have a lot of tackling sessions. You have game reps. The fundamentals of your tackling is something that we work every single day. And so you have to continue to work those things, even when you’re not in live tackling situations during the course of the week, it’s about putting yourself in that fundamental position. If your eyes are right, your body position’s right, you’ll continue to grow as a tackler. So we’ve made a point of emphasis and I’m not just saying that this week.
We made a point of that long before that too