What Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said at the Big Orange Caravan in Nashville

What Tennessee Football coach Josh Heupel said while meeting with reporters during the Big Orange Caravan stop Wednesday night in Nashville:

How he feels about Tennessee’s quarterback room and what he still needs to learn about Jake Merklinger, George MacIntyre and Joey Aguilar

“I’m excited about the the guys that are in the room. Highly competitive. They’re smart. There’s a lot of growth that goes in where we’re at, as a position room and individually, to where they need to get to before we get to training camp. Joey, obviously, got to get him here and start the process of learning everything that we do from fundamentals to the scheme to what we see on the defensive side of the ball and mastering all those things. 

“Our young quarterbacks, Jake and George, are going to continue to grow in that process as well. And at the end of the day, it’s every player’s responsibility to learn it, earn it, and take a job. And that’s always true for anybody. There’s nothing good or bad from the previous year that comes forward with you. And those three guys are going to embark on that. As a quarterback, the extra piece of it is you got to develop respect and trust and expectations from the guys around you, too. And that’s a part of the guy that’s going be the trigger guy.”

What Tennessee saw in transfer quarterback Joey Aguilar

“A guy that’s played a lot of football. Got, I think, close to 24 career starts, close to 7,000 yards. He’s got experience in it. And then you look at the the traits of the of the players. Got the ability to push ball down the field. There’s some things fundamentally that I think he can continue to grow in that will elevate his game. Consistency. He’s got the ability to extend and make plays outside of the pocket and then you can use them in the run game too. And those are traits that we feel like that we try to recruit to and that we have inside of the room.”

Joey Aguilar and the leadership needed at the quarterback position

“I think it’s similar. We got two guys that are really. Joey has played a lot of football, but he’s new to it (at Tennessee). And so you got to get yourself involved in the understanding and mastering of what you have to do in the scope of what we’re doing offensively. And then as you continue to grow inside of that throughout the course of late spring summer, developing connections and relationships inside of the building and then growing into that leadership role. At the end of the day, quarterback is a dependent position. You’re depending on the 10 other guys around you. And they got to play at a high level. That’s the fun part of this as we get into the summer getting around our guys, and then certainly once we’re in training camp too.” 

The challenge of trying to instill loyalty in players during the NCAA Transfer Portal era

“It’s a different landscape. And at the end of the day, it’s our job to operate inside of that landscape. And players have the opportunity to to leave the program or to join a program for for multiple reasons. And I think it’s important that you’re recruiting the traits that you want at different positions. And you try to find a guy that’s going to fit inside of the culture and develop the leadership from within, too.”

What kind of changes he would like to see made in the current college football landscape 

“End of the day, this is the landscape that we’re in. And there’s a lot of factors that go into how you make changes and what those changes can be. There’s a lot of different hoops that people got to find a way to thread the needle between them. And so this game is completely different than when I first took over as a head coach. It’s different than it was four years ago, three years ago. It’s constantly evolving. Our job to navigate that space the the best that we can.”

The importance of Tennessee’s relationships in the Nashville area

“It’s different now for high school guys at all levels than it had been, because of the portal. But for for us, from the day that we got there, it’s been really important to us for us to recruit this state and the mid-state the the right way. And that goes from the communication to know, coaches and people who have their boots on the ground. Goes into the evaluation process, of making the right decision from our side of it. And then the recruitment of the player too and doing that the right way. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to get every one of them. I think we got 13 guys from from right here in Nashville that are a huge part of the program. And the growth of our program, from when we first started to to where we are and also where we got to get to, this part of the state is very important to the success of our program. The guys that have been inside of our team room have been a huge part of the cornerstones of this program and rebuilding it. And so it’s been a lot of fun to have guys that, it means something to wear the Power T, too. They grew up around it and it’s a big part of our program.”

How different an offseason is when Tennessee is young at both quarterback and wide receiver 

“The general process isn’t a whole lot different. Some of what you’re intentional on uh, certainly is. And I say that, you got to develop leadership and ownership within it. When you have really strong guys, you’re trusting them to do that versus trying to really develop it. And certainly for me as a head coach, our leadership council … all that, (we’ve) really been intentional on that as we always are. The fundamental technique of young guys inside of your program, new guys inside of your program, when we start in the beginning stages of the summer, you got to start at ground zero and you got to continue to build. And players got to put in a bunch of time too. That’s part of their roadmap to get where they need to be by the time that we get to training camp. Not just kick off. There’s a spot you got to be when you get to training camp. And we’ve had our exit meetings with our guys and got a clear roadmap for all those guys. And now they got to to go chase it every day. 

What Tennessee saw in Grand Valley State defensive line transfer Josh Schell

“At the end of the day you’re looking for physical traits and the opportunity that you feel like you have, you can continue to develop that. You’ve got good size, very explosive on tape. He plays extremely hard. He’s physical. He’s played on the edge, played on the interior. I think that he’ll play primarily on the interior for us. We got great leadership inside of that room. Coach (Rodney) Garner and our defensive line staff, Coach Chop had done a great job of developing those guys. Excited to get him on board and start that process.”