Will Josh Heupel’s Tennessee resurgence continue against Alabama? | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss Tennessee’s hot start in its second season under Josh Heupel, and talk about the Volunteers chances against Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: Tennessee hosts Alabama. Josh Heupel, second year on the job, and he has got the Vols cooking. Now, they already beat Pitt, already beat Florida. They're having a really good season.
This, obviously, would be the capper. But the amount of excitement right now in Tennessee-- forlorn Vol fans who had to sit through the, what do we got, Derek Dooley era, we got the Butch Jones era, we had the Lane Kiffin sort of era--
ROSS DELLENGER: The eight months-- yeah, the eight months of Lane Kiffin.
DAN WETZEL: Eight months. The attempt to name a waste Treatment plant.
PAT FORDE: Coach Asparagus.
DAN WETZEL: Yeah, Coach Asparagus. No wonder Josh Heupel is the greatest thing to come down the pike in a while.
PAT FORDE: Yeah. Like-- he's following less than illustrious company.
ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah. Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: You surprised this quick, though? I mean, I give Danny White credit-- he comes from Central Florida as the AD and he brings his coach with him and it was kind of like, yeah, OK. Maybe. But wasn't like Heupel set the world on fire at UCF. But they look really, really good right now.
ROSS DELLENGER: They do. They do. And they're ahead of schedule, for sure. Like, just a few hours here, but met with a couple of people in the administration and they're not scared to say, we are ahead of schedule.
We did not expect in year two, we would start at 5 and 0, and beat Florida pretty soundly at home, and beat LSU on the road very soundly. I think this is, yeah, quicker than they thought. And it probably has a lot to do with the quarterback, Hendon Hooker and his set of receivers.
He's kind of the guy that's captaining the ship here in Josh Heupel's offense. And the defense is making strides. I think they played the best defensively that they have all year down in Baton Rouge. So they're hitting on all cylinders. Too bad for them, they've got Nick Saban coming to town.
DAN WETZEL: Oh. All right. Well, we'll pick the games later. Pat, your thoughts on the Tennessee revival?
PAT FORDE: Yeah. Super impressed. You know, I was pretty lukewarm on the Heupel hire, for the reasons you mentioned. I mean, he was all right at UCF, but things had started to decline a little bit from the peak of the-- I'm going to say the McKenzie Milton era, and not the Scott Frost era-- because I'm starting to think McKenzie Milton was the key to everything.
But you know, he came in, and, boy, I mean, last year, they just played with incredible tempo. And everybody plays with some tempo, but they were the fastest of the fast. And I remember them having, like, Georgia in disarray early in that game.
And you're like, whoa, whoa. And Hendon Hooker looking fantastic. And they just really didn't have a defense to back it up. But now this year, as Ross said, they're making definite strides defensively. And offensively, Hooker has taken it up even another level. To me, I would put him first on my Heisman ballot right now.
He hasn't thrown an interception since last year in, like-- November 13 against Georgia was his last interception. Since then, he's had three, four, five-- eight straight games with no interceptions. He's running the ball when he needs to-- very dangerous with his legs as well and making great reads.
They've got very good skill players. They can run when they need to run the ball. I mean, it's a complete package. And I'm telling you, Alabama better be ready. First of all, Bryce Young has to be ready. And even with him, I'm not sure they're going to win this game.
DAN WETZEL: It just looks like a really well-coached team, you know what I mean? I mean, they're getting it all done. That atmosphere will be crazy. Get-in price right now on the secondary ticket market is $300 for the worst seat in a stadium that is massive-- that has some bad seats.