Tennessee football got back in the win column Saturday afternoon defeating UTSA 45-14 at Neyland Stadium.
The Vols jumped out to a 31-0 lead thanks to a dominant first half performance before stalling out in an underwhelming third quarter and coasting to the victory.
After the win, Tennessee coach Josh Heupel discussed the fast start, Dylan Smpson’s big performance and much more. Here’s everything Heupel said about the win.
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Opening statement
“Appreciate our fans showing up early. Vol walk was awesome. Great start to the football game. Played well early in both phases and special teams and obviously third quarter, end of the second quarter, there were some things that we didn’t operate as efficiently as we needed to. Got to be better than that as we continue to go but again finished strong. Love the effort. Got to be a little bit smarter in some of the unique things that transpired over the course of the football game, for sure.”
On what the strong start does for the offense’s confidence
“The first half, starting fast, being efficient, blocking well, big runs. Joe obviously starts the game with a huge play off of his read key. We were efficient in the pass game too. I also said in the locker room that it’s a fine line. It’s, again, a reminder for the competitive edge that you’ve got to have and continue to keep during the course of a ball game too.”
On where the blame falls for the dip in passing production over the course of the game
“Couple of them are him (Milton). Couple deep balls were a little bit off. Wide receivers being in sync on some of their route patterns too in the middle of the field. It’s a combination of all those things that didn’t let us operate as efficiently as we needed to be.”
On what they need to do to avoid the offensive lulls
“Got to block well up front. Got to give the quarterback time. Got to go win one-on-ones. Quarterback has to be accurate with the ball. I know that sounds redundant a little bit but at the end of the day that’s what we have to do. The efficiency in the run game in the middle of the game too was a part of it. All of it has to play together.”
On how Dylan Sampson responded to not playing last week, what was working well for him
“Dylan has been the same guy on the practice field. He’s been a good leader in the locker room. Competitive. Willing to do whatever to help the team. When he has the ball in his hands he’s done a good job of reading it, delivering blocks, made a backdoor cut tonight as the flow over the top happens. Been really efficient in what he’s done. Gonna need him as we continue to go too.”
On if playing guys early was the plan
“It was the plan. I told you guys last week or this past week that the flow of the football game a week ago, how it transpired, we had planned on rotating more than we did and that can be on coaches, the situation, whatever. Listen, it’s going to be physical football games as we go. Going to continue to need to play a lot of guys and guys that have the hot hand at whatever position will be the guys there in the critical moments as the game goes on. Anticipate, again, playing more guys than we did a week ago.”
On if Tennessee did a better job of putting a play behind them
“I think the lulls were a combination of efficiency, effectiveness and what we’re doing. Structural, a little bit of change from them, us countering that a little bit better in our targets and in particular in the run game. I felt like a little bit it affected one play to the next in a little bit of that lull but I also thought they were able to reset and comeback and make some plays.”
On what he knows he’s going to get from Joe Milton each game, what he’s still unsure of
“Want him to continue to make plays. (He’s) Going to have to use his feet. You saw it tonight in the run game. As we go into our drop back pass game he’s going to have to work the pocket, climb the pocket and escape and make plays with his feet. Extend and make plays with his arm. That will be critical as we continue to go. Need him to take great care of the football. There’s still a level of efficiency that we can get to in our passing game. I’m saying that to Joe, it’s our wideouts, it’s our tight ends, it’s all that together that we can take another jump.”
On seeing Kaleb Webb step up
“Good to see Kaleb Webb make a play. Chas (Nimrod) got some playing time. Two young guys that have to continue to grow. At some point, just like tonight, you inevitably need those guys but it was good to see them out there and handle the situation well. Kaleb Webb obviously the big touchdown catch too. That was awesome to see from him.”
On Cooper Mays status
“We’ll see next week. At the end of the day, he didn’t feel like he was ready for this one. Hopefully we will have him back.”
On how the offensive line performed without him
“Some efficiency, in particular early in the run game. Later in the football game, too. The pocket was clean for the most part early and then it got, in the middle part of the game, a little bit muddy. We can be better.”
On the injuries that happened during the game
“We had multiple guys… feel like we should have most of those guys back here next week. I’ll know more here tomorrow when I come back into the building.”
On how he assesses their tackling after last week
“For the most part good. There were still a couple opportunities where we overran things. Just our target playing inside out on some things. But I thought defensively, line of scrimmage, applying pressure to the quarterback, tackling for the most part besides the lull in the third quarter, all pretty solid.”
On Cam Seldon’s special teams mistake being a teaching moment
“It’s a teaching moment that we don’t want to have. We go through a lot of scenarios and situations, and obviously, a young guy just made a mistake. Hate that for him. He is playing with great effort, continuing to grow, and I believe he’s going to be a really good player for us. But I hate that. It changed the momentum in the first quarter. You look at where the ball’s going to be. I think it was 14-0 at that point, and got a chance to push it to 21-0 there early in the first quarter. Just a couple of unique things that transpire that change the way the game’s played, and you can’t do that as a football team. So we have to continue to grow in that way.”
On UTSA’s fake punt
“They’ve been aggressive on special teams throughout his history there over the last couple of years, and that’s been on the kickoff but also, I felt like in that situation, the score of the game, potentially. We didn’t have our base defense out there, but those guys on our punt return team did a good job of playing that out.”
On if Joe Milton taking a big hit affected his accuracy, him keeping the ball on read options
“I don’t think that was the issue in the pass game. Sometimes you get keep reads on some of the edge reads, sometimes you don’t, based on the structure and how teams are playing it. We’ve had that in. He’ll be a part of our quarterback run game as we continue to go.”
On learning about his team following the Florida loss
“You don’t want to have to learn about them that way. But I think we learned a lot about our football team in the second half of last week’s game, too. Resilient, tough, competitive, willing to go out and compete, they did that today, too. They had a really good week of practice. They came back, you could tell it hurt, and they came back and practiced well, too. This group, they’re pretty consistent in that, and I expect that again as we continue as we go.”
