Steve Spurrier Critical of Tennessee Football’s Offense Through Two SEC Games

By Ric Butler
- Oct 8, 2024

Former championship-winning Florida coach Steve Spurrier didn’t hold back his thoughts on the Tennessee Volunteers’ offense this week.

During an appearance on Pat Dooley’s Another Dooley Noted Podcast on Monday, Spurrier gave his quick thoughts on Tennessee just 48 hours removed from their loss to Arkansas on Saturday night in Fayetteville.

Never one to stay quiet on things, Spurrier was critical of Tennessee’s offensive production in their two SEC games against Oklahoma and Arkansas over the past three weeks.

“He did not have a really good day,” Spurrier said of Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava against the Razorbacks. “He goes back, looks right at his receiver it looks like all the time, and then maybe takes off running. And Arkansas did not let him run very much. And then he didn’t do all that much against Oklahoma. Tennessee has played extremely well against the down-the-line teams but the two SEC guys have stopped them fairly much, their offense. But the Tennessee defense (inaudible) Oklahoma pretty good, and really Arkansas didn’t do much against Tennessee(‘s defense), either.”

Spurrier believes the door to beating Tennessee is open because of the Razorbacks’ victory on Saturday.

“This was a big win for us, for Napier, the staff,” Spurrier said about Florida’s win over UCF. “Now let’s keep that momentum going. We’re certainly capable of beating Tennessee. If Arkansas can beat them, we can beat them. If we play a good game and we’re up for it, we certainly have a chance to beat them.”

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But while Spurrier’s confidence in a Florida win grew with Tennessee’s loss to Arkansas, Dooley still held some reservation about a team playing off of a surprising loss.

“Well, my thing was it’s almost like its worse that they lost to Arkansas,” Dooley replied after Spurrier talked about different expectations for the game on Saturday now. “Because, if they had won a close game, they, you know, but now they feel like they’ve got to change everything and I never know how, you never know how a team is going to respond off a loss, you know that. You dealt with that all the time where a team loses a game that it was supposed to win, now they come back for the next game and sometimes they’re a little more hyped up. But maybe not. Maybe they’re just struggling.”

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel talked on Monday about the energy and atmosphere on the practice field as the Vols returned to work following their first loss of the season.

“Obviously it’s an opportunity and time of the week where you look back at the football game and how we get better,” Heupel said on Monday. “Whether you win or lose, it’s important by the time you go out on the field with the guys that you flush it, you move on. And as competitors, you’re only as good as your next one. Everybody in the building disappointed with the outcome on Saturday night. You can’t do anything about that at this point other than take the lessons and push forward and continue to, to grow as a football team. And you know, so in that way, no matter what happened the previous week, you got to move on. Guys were good. Took the information and had a good demeanor out on the practice field. So it’s important for us that we get off to a good start and prepare the right way, just like it is every single week for us.”