Josh Heupel assesses the mistakes, inconsistency from Joe Milton

Tennessee QB Joe Milton took a slight step back in his play for the Volunteers this weekend in their loss at Florida. Still, the poor outing from the offense doesn’t all fall on his shoulders according to Josh Heupel.

Heupel evaluated the play of Tennessee’s QB1 in his press conference to start the week. He understands that there were some highs and lows when it came to Milton’s outing in Gainesville. However, he also put it on the staff, the offensive line, and the weapons for it not running as smoothly as they’re used to.

“There’s some real positives. The efficiency, the communication, handling all that,” Heupel said. “We have to be better, he’s got to be better, and the guys up front have got to be better too. Some of our skill guys have to (be better) as well.

“He did some really good things the other night. The pick? We can’t just throw it up. He’d like to have that one back. We’ve got to be better in protection too in that situation,” continued Heupel. “The decision-making, where he’s going with the football? I’ve said it before the game, I’ll say it after the game too. He was in the right spots. Accuracy? The wide receivers were being exact in their routes.”

Milton finished 20-of-34 passing in Gainesville for a season-low 58.8% completion rate. They went for a season-high 287 yards and his usual of two touchdowns but his streak of no interceptions as a Vol came to an end with a rough, crucial one in the first half to Devin Moore that set Florida up to take a double-digit lead three plays later that they’d never relinquish again.

With Hendon Hooker coming before him and Nico Iamaleava as the future behind him, it puts Milton in a difficult spot to live up to certain expectations. Still, for Heupel, he says Tennessee’s entire offense is going to have to grow alongside Milton to be what they’d like to be again this fall.

“All those things have got to continue to improve for us to be as efficient as we need to be,” Heupel said.

Milton details how Tennessee beat itself with self-inflicted wounds

Tennessee was upset in The Swamp by the Florida Gators last weekend. As QB Joe Milton explained it, though, it had less to do with anything their opponents did and more to do with what Tennessee did during the game.

In particular, Milton feels that Tennessee became the victim of self-inflicted wounds in the game against Florida.

“Just us not being focused,” Milton said postgame. “Just shooting ourselves in the foot. That’s all it is.”

“Environments like this, as a team, you’ve got to come together as a collective and you’ve just got to execute plays. We didn’t start off doing that in the beginning of the first half. So that led to the score tonight.”

One of the mistakes Tennessee made during the game was an interception by Milton. Afterward, he had no problem taking the full blame for it.

“It happened, man. It happened. I can’t go back and change what happened. You only can learn from it. Totally on me. I understand.”

Among the other issues that Tennessee had in the game were being 0-3 on fourth down attempts plus 10 penalties called against them, some of which were incredibly costly.

“It’s all self-inflicted wounds. You look at it and you’ll be like, ‘Oh, man. Oh, we lost to Florida’. But you go in there and you see all the self problems we made, the self things that we did to ourselves that messed up the play or messed up the drive,” Milton said.

“Like, those small things we can go change but you’ve got to keep believing in yourself as a team. That’s my message to the team – keep believing in yourself and go execute. That’s all that matters.”