Tennessee's win over Clemson in Orange Bowl draws huge viewership on ESPN

Josh Heupel said it after the game, after his sixth-ranked Tennessee football team ended its season with a 31-14 win over No. 7 Clemson in the Capital One Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. 

“Tonight is a big night,” Heupel said after the Vols finished their first 11-win season since 2001. 

The ESPN viewership numbers support the statement from the second-year Tennessee coach. 

The Orange Bowl on December 30 drew 8.6 million viewers on ESPN. It was the most-watched non-semifinal Orange Bowl since 2017, when Wisconsin played Miami. It was the best standalone New Year’s Six bowl game since the 2017 Cotton Bowl between USC and Ohio State.

The broadcast window was up 12 percent year over year, going back to the 2021 Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, and the audience was up more than 40 percent from the 2019 and 2020 windows.

“Man, bowl games matter,” Heupel said. “You watch them every single day, you can see the energy, effort, strain, the excitement, the disappointment on the other side. They matter. It doesn’t mean that everybody has everybody for the ballgame. That’s just the nature of where we’re at during the course of bowl season.”

Joe Milton threw for 251 yards, three touchdowns while leading Vols to Orange Bowl win

Tennessee (11-2) was without starting quarterback Hendon Hooker, who had his season ended in November after tearing his ACL in a loss at South Carolina. The Vols were also missing opt outs in receivers Cedric Tillman and Jalin Hyatt, the Biletnikoff Award winner, along with linebacker Jeremy Banks.

Joe Milton replaced Hooker, completing 19 of 28 passes for 251 yards and three touchdowns. He threw a 46-yard touchdown to Ramel Keyton, a 16-yard touchdown to Bru McCoy and a 15-yard score to Squirrel White.

White, the freshman speedster who replaced Hyatt, caught nine passes for 108 yards and the touchdown, including a 50-yard bomb that set up a two-yard Jabari Small touchdown run. The Vols ran 38 times for 124 yards and a touchdown as a team.

“It matters for everybody that shows up,” Heupel said. “It matters to the head coaches, the assistants. It matters to the fans. It matters to the players. These guys are prideful. Clemson is prideful. When you line up and compete, man, you’re going to compete with everything that you’ve got.”

Tennessee won 11 games for first time since 2001

The win was Tennessee’s first in the Orange Bowl since 1939. It was the first time the Vols had been in the Orange Bowl since 1998 and the first time they had been in a New Year’s Six bowl game in the College Football Playoff era.  

On the way to the Orange Bowl, Tennessee won 10 games in the regular season for the first time since 2003 and beat three of the last four national champions — Alabama, LSU and Clemson.

“It continues to put our brand, the style of football, and it’s a legacy moment for the guys that are here that are graduating,” Heupel said of the significance of playing in and winning the Orange Bowl, “but it’s a springboard for us moving forward.

“Again, our brand is out in front of everybody … there’s so many positive things, so much momentum inside of our program that the entire country, our players, our fan base, recruits, can see the trajectory of where Tennessee is and where it’s going.”