The 2022 college football award season has brought plenty of highlights and recognition to the Tennessee Football program in the first two weeks after the close of the regular season.
Following a 10-2 regular season finish with the No. 1 offense in the country, there has been plenty of reasons to celebrate success on Rocky Top in early December. Take Tennessee wide receiver Jalin Hyatt, for instance. Hyatt was announced as the 2022 Biletnikoff winner on Thursday and parlayed that award into a First Team All-American selection from the Football Writers Association of America on Friday.
Hendon Hooker, the face of Tennessee’s program this year, has landed a spot on just about every finalist list there is to highlight the best players in college football. The mind-boggling travesty, though, is that Hooker was not the winner of any of those awards. Regardless, the second-year quarterback was named the SEC offensive player of the year by multiple publications and also took home the nod as Kirk Herbstreit’s offensive player of the year across the sport. Awards or not, Hooker was the guy for Tennessee this year, and that won’t be forgotten.
While leading Tennessee to the 10-2 record including wins over Alabama, LSU, Florida, and Kentucky, Vols head coach Josh Heupel was named the SEC Coach of the Year by the AP voters.
More from RTI: Four-Star Receiver De-Commits From Tennessee
Check out the full list of awards and recognitions for Tennessee Football in the first 13 days after the close of the college football regular season below.
Tennessee HC Josh Heupel
- SEC Coach of the Year: AP
- Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year Finalist
Former OC Alex Golesh (Now South Florida head coach)
- Frank Broyles Award Finalist
Tennessee WR Jalin Hyatt
- Biletnikoff Award Winner
- All-America First Team Selection: Walter Camp, Football Writers Association of America, The Athletic, CBS Sports, 247Sports, Sporting News, ESPN
- All-SEC First Team Selection: AP, Coaches, USA Today
Congratulations to my dawg @jalinhyatt. Hard work pays off!
— Cedric Tillman (@Ctillman04) December 9, 2022
Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker
- Walter Camp Player of the Year finalist
- Maxwell Award finalist
- Manning Award finalist
- Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award finalist
- Kirk Herbstreit‘s Offensive Player of the Year
- Heisman Trophy Fan Vote Winner
- SEC Offensive Player of the Year: AP, Coaches, USA Today
- All-SEC First Team: AP, Coaches, USA Today
- All-America Second Team: CBS Sports, 247Sports
- All-America Third Team: Associated Press
Tennessee OL Darnell Wright
- All-SEC First Team: AP, Coaches
- Reese’s Senior Bowl Selection
— Hendon Hooker (@henhook2) December 9, 2022
Tennessee DE Byron Young
- All-SEC First Team: Coaches
- All-SEC Second Team: AP
TE Jacob Warren
- 2022 SEC Community Service Team
*Awards via Tennessee Athletics communications*
