Josh Heupel shares how he will help Joe Milton through criticism
Tennessee‘s high-powered offense didn’t look so high-powered last weekend in The Swap as they took a 29-16 loss to the Florida Gators. And per usual in football, a lot of those offensive struggles have been pinned on Volunteers’ quarterback Joe Milton.
Milton hasn’t necessarily lived up to the tremendous amount of offseason hype surrounding him so far three weeks through the season. And his head coach and former Oklahoma quarterback Josh Heupel spoke about guiding Milton through the criticism and outside noise.
“Yeah nobody was every critical of me when I was playing quarterback so I didn’t have to deal with that situation,” Heupel joked.
“Listen, and it’s for everybody in the building right, if you think your values based off of outside opinion when it’s going well or when it hasn’t gone as well as you would like it to you’re putting yourself in a situation to be up and down. Be consistent in your preparation, you gotta plan for those guys every single week, be into your routine.”
The Volunteers definitely did not start off conference play the way they imagined, as the nation’s top scoring offense from a season ago was held to their lowest point total since the Georgia Bulldogs held them to 13 points last season.
Milton has completed 63.9% of his passes this season for 716 yards, six touchdowns through the air, and three on the ground along with one interception. His production isn’t too far off from what Hendon Hooker displayed through three weeks of the season last year for the Vols, but a subpar performance in a loss to a conference rival definitely shifts the outside narrative.
But through their recent offensive struggles, Heupel believes that Milton and the offense leaning into their process and preparation can turn things around for them.
“Doesn’t ensure that you’re going to play perfect, it’s hard in this game to do that,” Heupel admitted. “You’ve got 11 guys on the other side of the football, you’ve got strategy from the coaches. At the end of the day, you prepare the best you can to put yourself in a position to go play your best. Joe’s got things that he can do better, but the guys around him gotta do things better too and at the end of the day if you’re in 2nd and 20 all day it makes things real difficult.”
Hopefully, Milton and the offense will be able to bounce back this weekend as they face UConn, as they look to play a cleaner brand of football and regain their footing following a disappointing SEC debut.
“So offensively, we have to control the controllables, you can’t have a bunch of self-inflicted wounds. You got to play smart football, you do that you give yourself a chance to move the football and score points,” Heupel concluded.