Josh Heupel makes Hendon Hooker's case to be Heisman finalist

The Tennessee Volunteers received some upsetting news following their upset loss to South Carolina on Saturday, as their leader and star quarterback Hendon Hooker suffered a torn ACL in the game and will miss the remainder of the season. Hooker’s injury does not take away from the fact that he had an outstanding and historic season for the Volunteers, and head coach Josh Heupel believes that the the year he’s had should still garner him an invite to New York next month as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

“For Hendon, he’s not going to have an opportunity to play the last regular season game, but the rest of the season there’s nobody playing at a higher level than he has,” Heupel said.

Heupel’s proclamation is hard to argue with, as Hooker helped lead the nation’s top offense in yards and points per game for a majority of the season and turn things around for Tennessee’s program in a drastic way.

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“And you can see that in the way that we’ve played, the numbers that he’s put up, he absolutely deserves the opportunity to be there,” Heupel said. “And some of the quarterback awards, I anticipate him having an opportunity to win those.”

Hooker was the model of efficiency and consistency at the quarterback position this season across college football, ending his Heisman campaign throwing for 3,135 yards and 27 touchdown passes with a 70% completion percentage and only two inceptions on the season. He also got it done with his legs, adding 430 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground to his stat line.

The Volunteers will surely be missing the presence of Hooker in their final regular season game as well as their bowl game, but hopefully, his body of work this year is enough for him to be present in New York and beyond following the season giving him the opportunity to take home some well deserved hardware.

Josh Heupel sends strong message to team following missed opportunity vs. South Carolina

It’s safe to say that nobody anticipated Tennessee losing the way they did this weekend, as they got a taste of their own medicine from South Carolina losing big to the Gamecocks 63-38. The Volunteers struggled and South Carolina played their best offensive game of the season by far, and Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel had a strong message to his team following their loss.

“For us and this program, this one needs to hurt on the way back,” Heupel said. “And it needs to hurt the guys that aren’t on this trip that will be in our building tomorrow afternoon and be there on Monday.”

Heupel is notorious for his quick turnaround in Knoxville, transforming a team that was 3-7 in 2020 a year before his arrival to a College Football Playoff contender this season. The improvement of the Vols is definitely worth celebrating, as their loss is only their second of the season, but Heupel knows that if he wants to keep the standards high at Tennessee that this loss will have to be valued.

“For us to grow as a program, you’ve got to look at this opportunity and understand what happened and let it hurt, and remember that as you move forward and let it help you grow,” Heupel said.

Unfortunately for Tennessee, they also lost star quarterback Hendon Hooker in this game who suffered a torn ACL in the second half. Hooker was the unquestioned leader and catalyst of the nation’s top offense this season for the Vols, as they will have to close out the season without him. The Vols take on in-state rival Vanderbilt this weekend, who have been making history recently after pulling off their second straight SEC victory this weekend for the first time since 2018.