Joey Aguilar starts tradition taking teammates out to eat: 'Just trying to build a connection, learn everybody's story'

Joey Aguilar didn’t waste anytime building bonds at Tennessee after transferring to the school in the spring. During an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show on Tuesday, the Volunteers quarterback revealed the tradition that helped him connect with his new teammates.

“There was a tradition at App State of just taking my teammates out to eat. So I kind of wanted to bring that here and take my O-line out to eat, receivers out to eat, pretty much the whole offense out to eat,” Aguilar said. “Just going out to eat and just having a fun time, getting outside of football, and just trying to build a connection. Learn everybody’s story, and kind of get an understanding of how they got here, what’s their why, and just build a relationship like that.

“Everybody welcomed me in pretty fairly when I got here… I gravitated towards Miles Kitselman pretty quick. He was a big part of my transition ,making it easier. He kind of came in, took me in pretty quick, build a connection like that. Chris [Brazzell II], Mike [Matthews], Braylon [Staley], all of them, O-linemen — it made it easy. It felt like I’ve been here for a while, especially with the players and coaches just being so welcoming when I got here. It just felt like it was right.”

Aguilar’s offseason efforts to get closer with his team paid off on Saturday during Tennessee’s 45-26 win over Syracuse. In the victory, Aguilar looked more than comfortable, completing 16-of-his-28 pass attempts for 247 yards and three touchdowns, without throwing an interception.

Aguilar also notched 34 rushing yards in the win. It was an impressive feat for a QB who only joined the program in late April.

Aguilar had a winding path to Tennessee. After spending two seasons as Appalachian State‘s QB1, Aguilar transferred to UCLA in the winter. However, after former Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava transferred into UCLA, Aguilar was left reassessing his options.

In a twist of fate, Joey Aguilar essentially swapped places with Iamaleava, joining the Volunteers. Naturally, some analysts were hesitant to believe Aguilar could succeed at Tennessee since he transferred to the program so late. Nonetheless, Aguilar never let the critics get to him.

“All the outside noise is just rat poison,” Aguilar said after Tennessee’s win over Syracuse. “We only focus about who’s in the building and the team we’ve got. So, we’ve got to go back, execute, dial in on everything we got. Like he said, it’s FEB. Everything outside is rat poison, and we got to focus on ourselves.”