Josh Heupel lays out Tennessee's goals for the bye week

Tennessee finally got Cooper Mays back Saturday night against South Carolina, after the senior center missed the first four games of the season. Defensive back Doneiko Slaughter dressed but only played six snaps while he continues to deal with a foot injury.

Offensive guard Andrej Karic was out, as was wide receiver Dont’e Thornton. 

Now, though, the Vols (4-1, 1-1 SEC) get a chance to catch their breath and try to get healthy during the bye week, before hosting Texas A&M (4-1, 2-0) on October 14 (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) at Neyland Stadium.

“We’re a football team that needs to get healthy,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said Saturday night. “I usually get the question, is it coming at the right time? For us right now, I would say it’s coming at the right time. We need to get healthy and get some young guys to grow. We gotta grow as a football team. 

‘We gotta get healthy for the second half of the season’

He reiterated the point Monday while speaking at the Knoxville Quarterback Club.

“Extremely important that we get healthy this week,” Heupel said. “Got a bunch of guys that are nicked up. We gotta get healthy for the second half of the season.”

Mays made his return after being out since August 9, when he underwent hernia surgery. Slaughter had missed the last two games before getting limited snaps against South Carolina. 

Running back Jaylen Wright and wide receiver Ramel Keyton started against the Gamecocks after leaving the UTSA game the week before with injuries, but the Vols lost Bru McCoy to a season-ending leg injury against South Carolina. 

“We gotta get some young guys to grow up real quickly here,” Heupel said. “And we’ll do that over the next two weeks before we see y’all back in Neyland against a really good football team in Texas A&M.”

Heupel on Monday laid out the plan for the bye week, which started with routine staff meetings on Sunday, after breaking down the South Carolina tape and taking a closer look at Tennessee’s personnel.

“That’s every single week where you’re looking at your personnel,” Heupel said, “and how things may change, because of injury or how people are playing. You see depth charts changing, which affects special teams as well.” 

Up Next: No. 22 Tennessee vs. Texas A&M, October 14, 3:30 p.m. ET, CBS

The Vols will start prep work for Texas A&M during practice this week before Heupel and his coaches shift to recruiting later in the week. 

“Our coaches will be gone,” Heupel said. “Some of them leave Wednesday night, some of them leave Thursday after practice and Thursday, Friday we’ll be recruiting and potentially Saturday for junior college guys.”

After hosting Texas A&M on October 14, the second half of the schedule starts with back-to-back road trips to Alabama (October 21) and Kentucky (October 28). Three of the four November games are at home, against UConn (November 4), Georgia (November 18) and Vanderbilt (November 25). Tennessee plays at Missouri on November 11. 

Heupel said the goals this week are to get healthier, get better and continue to improve the depth of his Tennessee football team. 

“Good teams continue to get better throughout the course of the season,” he said. “And we gotta play smarter football and our margins just aren’t big enough to not do that. So we’re in control of that. Starts with coaches, starts with me, starts with our assistant coaches and then our players gotta soak it up to.”