What Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said on The Mike Keith Show

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel made his weekly stop Thursday on The Mike Keith Show ahead of the Vols homecoming match up with New Mexico State (4:15pm ET). Here’s everything the head coach had to say about his team coming off the bye week hitting the final three game stretch.

Enthusiasm coming out of bye week

“Anytime you have a bye week, your players in particular have a chance to pause for a second, catch their breath and for us, everyone remembers what you do at the end of the year, they remember November. We need to go finish. I am excited to get back on the field and go play with these guys and compete on Saturday afternoon.” 

On the performance and productivity of the wide receivers…

“They were a huge question mark from our fanbase coming into the season. We believed in the guys that we had in the room as we went into the off-season. The physical traits are one thing but also, what their growth would look like as a person and as a competitor. Coach Pope and our staff have done a great job of helping those guys continue to grow. They have been really consistent the majority of the season in how they have prepared and how they have played. We certainly need big performances from them and that consistency to finish the year out.”

On the receivers continuing to grow throughout the year…

“Every rep that you get matters. Then there is the game portion of those reps too. The comfort of going out and competing against like competition for a lot of them it’s the first time they are seeing someone across from them that runs the way they do and have the length that they do. All the moving parts that you see from different coverages. That all continues to build a bank inside the player of things they can recall and come back to in order to help them go perform the way they need to on game day.

There are a lot of great ones that have been through here. A lot of names that I remember watching. That’s one of the fun things about our VFL’s coming back for me to have the opportunity to meet them. And for our players to have conversations with them and take nuggets from guys that played at an elite level in college and in the NFL.” 

The play of the coverage units, especially the punt coverage units…

“Again, it’s all 11 operating well. Being good up front in our protection. Our shield being really solid. Jackson (Ross) understanding when he has an opportunity to hold onto the ball. Placement of his kicks in the right spot and having good hang time. Then our guys running and covering on the outside. William Wright is a guy who on all four teams (special teams units) has done an elite job all year long. Bandy has been out on the perimeter. Jalen McMurray. Some of our young guys Justin Baker and Jaedon Harmon have played extremely well on that unit. We don’t want to see our punt team on the field very often but when they do we need them to go execute.”

If you play hard and well on special teams that’s how you gain a coaches trust and get on the field…

“Everything that you do in practice, the opportunities you have on gameday, a lot of guys for must young guys it happens on special teams. Football IQ, field awareness, body position and relationships, you learn so much. We call them transferrable skills. They things you do on special teams correlate to what you are doing on defense and offense in mastering those techniques. Gaining confidence as a football player.” 

Preparing for a team you have no history with….

“Every Saturday is it’s on gameday. The game forms an identity as you go through it. Being consistent in how you prepare. The opponent is nameless and faceless. I think that is really important for your team to play consistently. We haven’t played perfect but our preparation has continued to get better throughout the course of the year. In this game you want to play all 11 together in each phase of the game. Play with physicality. Destruct the line of scrimmage defensively. Own it on the offensive side of the ball. Recognize things on the back in defensively.” 

What are you stressing to Joey Aguilar for the last three games? 

“As we introduce new things specifically for a game plan as a staff we have a ton of familiarity with it. We have to recognize this might be his first opportunity with it in this scheme. He has continued to grow throughout the course of the season. He’s made some great plays. Playing the quarterback position you have to play on the right side of it. Taking care of the football is an area we continue to grow in. Again, that’s all 11 too. That’s protection up front including the running back and the tight end. It’s wide receivers being on the same page so the details in everything that we are doing are going to continue to matter.”

Have you seen the growth out of the offensive line that you hoped you would see? 

“There’s been things we have done at a really high level and there’s been a couple of Saturdays were maybe I didn’t feel like we ran the ball executing as well as we could have up front. But overall, I love that group. I just want to see them continue to grow and compete the way they have been.”