Joel Klatt tells Tennessee fans how to feel after Week 3

2022 was a season that was full of magical moments on Rocky Top that many won’t soon forget. Still, as Joel Klatt has pointed out, that campaign and the success that came with it is over.

Klatt examined how the Tennessee fanbase should feel after the first three weeks of their 2023 slate during his show on Wednesday. In his opinion, the Volunteers should feel like last season deceived them considering it led them to believe that they were back when, in actuality, this season is proving that that may have been a one-time deal.

“You know how you should feel Tennessee fans? Duped. You got duped,” said Klatt. “You got totally duped. Because guess what? You thought that the program had elevated to that point where you were an upper-echelon SEC program. That’s not the case.”

“You had some upper-echelon talent and there’s a huge difference – huge,” Klatt said.

Everyone knew that there’d be some level of variance between Tennessee’s difference makers last year and their difference makers this year. Even so, Klatt sees that margin as being far bigger than anyone’s saying considering where that group took their team and where this group is likely to take this fall’s team.

“Joe Milton is not anywhere nearly as good of a quarterback as Hendon Hooker. That’s just a fact,” said Klatt. “The wide receiver group is not Jalin Hyatt and company like last year. The defense has not been up to par.”

“You got duped into feeling like your program had arrived at a level in which it had not arrived at. A few players took you to a mountaintop and duped you into thinking that the entire program was on that mountaintop,” continued Klatt. “It’s just not the case. And, now, when they walk out the door? Here we are.”

In Josh Heupel’s second season, Tennessee put on a masterclass that made them the talk of college football. Knoxville buzzed the whole way through as they felt like Volunteer football had finally made it back to its home sweet home.

Instead, Klatt believes the start of this season has given the Volunteers and the people who believed in them moving forward a heavy helping of reality when it comes to year-to-year success and how difficult it is to maintain it.

“It’s insanely hard to have great team after great team after great team and constantly put yourself on the level of the elite in your conference or the country. It’s almost impossible. That’s why it’s really hard and this is the evidence of that,” said Klatt. “Tennessee fans were duped, we were all duped into believing Tennessee was something that they were not.”

“We were all duped. And Tennessee fans? You were duped as well,” Klatt said.