Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel answered questions on the SEC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday morning before the Vols face Kent State at Neyland Stadium in its final tuneup before the start of SEC play.
With Kent State unlikely to pose much of a threat, most of the conversation on the teleconference revolved around Tennessee football’s blowout win over NC State and what he’s seen through two weeks. Specifically, Heupel discussed the play of Nico Iamaleava, the Vols’ pass protection and more. Here’s everything he said.
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Opening statement
“I really like what our players have done here at the beginning of the week. Just their focus, their preparation, their urgency to get ready for this football game. Came in on Monday with a really good mindset of how we need to get better as we watch the video? And have had a couple of really good days of practice on the field. We got to go finish our preparation here in the lead up to kick off, to go take another step as a football team in the way that we play and continue to get better. And I’m looking forward to being back home inside of Neyland Stadium, getting a chance to see our fans here in this one as well.”
On Nico Iamaleava throwing into traffic against NC State, conversations that came form that
“Well, at this level, you’re going to have to throw into some tight windows throughout the course of the season. You play good opponents, got good scheme and got good players. So being open at this level of play, you got to be able to place the ball accurately. That comes from your fundamentals and your eyes in the decision making and where you’re going an you got to be on the same page with the wide receivers. At the end of the day, he would like to have a couple of those back, but it wasn’t just him either. At the end of the day, the quarterback’s always got to make it right. But wide receiver and quarterback can be on page on one of them. Protection’s got to be a little bit better, but he can also find the soft spot in it. And like I said, at the end of the day, he’s got to make it right. But I got to be really careful pulling the reins on a quarterback, because those guys are gonna have to play in tight spaces and tight windows going to have to make plays. They just, as a competitor, you got to be on the right side of that edge. And Nico, two games into this season, one start from the bowl game. He’s had great command and control and presence in how we’re functioning offensively. Decision making’s been really solid and he controls so much of what we do. I’ve been really excited about his command of what we’re doing offensively versus the different structures that he inevitably seized during the course of the game day.”
On his assessment of their pass protection through two games
“Protection, as a whole, has been solid. Are there areas fundamentally that we can continue to improve on? Yep, absolutely. But I don’t care what side of the ball it is. All 11 got to function and operate together as one. And that’s identification up front. It’s passing twists off, but it’s your tight ends, your running backs being involved in it. It’s your quarterback having his eyes in the right spot to get the ball out on time. But it’s also your wide receivers winning against some of these looks on time as well. All of those things got to play off of each other. It takes 11 guys playing at a really high level, doing the ordinary things at a really high level to operate and function the way that you want to.”
On what he wants his defense at Tennessee to look like
“The standard here is to be elite. I said it a week ago, this is a home of Reggie White, Al Wilson, Eric Berry, the list goes on-and-on and when we got here, there were some speed bumps that we had to navigate with our roster. Feel like we’ve given ourselves the best chance in the immediate, but also protected the future of our program. This is the deepest that our roster has been and the personnel that we have in the understanding of our scheme and the development of the players from our staff. We’ve continued to get better and we’ve played really good football here the last few weeks. There’s a lot that we can be better at too. And that was the point of emphasis for our football team on Monday morning as they came into the building. And just as a program we want to play extremely aggressive and that’s our front playing vertically. It’s running to the football, just like what we’ve done defensively, how hard they’re playing. Really like a lot of what we’ve seen and I said it earlier, but there’s a lot of things that we can continue to improve on and we need to and that’s the goal every day that we’re in this building.”
On what they can take from the NC State game moving forward
“I think the, like a 360 degree view is just the type of preparation that we have from everybody in the building. The way, the urgency that we practiced with and that leads you to going and playing assignment sound and then once we teed the ball up, just the physicality that we played with and the effort and energy from snap to the echo of the whistle and play after play. And end of the day you got to play harder than your opponents. If you don’t do that,it’s tough to overcome anything. So been excited about the way that we’ve played, but we got to continue to get better and our players have bought into that. Our first couple days on the practice field. You can see that in the way that they’ve taken the field.”
On working with current Colorado State head coach Jay Norvell when they were both assistants together at Oklahoma
“Jay’s a great person, cares about the people around him. Extremely bright, extremely competitive. That was him. Just hearing stories of him as a player and obviously throughout our coaching time together experienced that. And I think he’s got an ability to relate to young people and build trust with them and that’s why he’s done so well at the couple spots that he has been at as a head coach.”
