On Saturday, Tennessee was without starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava in the second half, but still managed a win over Mississippi State.

Afterward, head coach Josh Heupel met with the media.

Here's everything he had to say.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

Another SEC win. Good win. Proud of the way the guys played for four quarters. Competing hard, played physical. Offensively, there's some things in the football game that have an opportunity to change the way the game's played. Just not efficient, really. Second, third down, there's little things that lead into the fourth down that we don't end up converting on. All in all, a really good night. I'm proud of the way guys responded. Gaston, the way he played. The young running backs get an opportunity played really well. So, defensively, just, gave up a couple of runs, but all in all, great night. I think they were really good on third downs again.

We anticipate having him ready for next week. Cautionary measure at halftime. We'll be ready to roll next Saturday.

Good to go score, of course. There's a lot left out there for us, but play hard continue to play smart, of course.

Good to see him go operate the way that we know he can. He's a smart decision maker. Aggressive when it was time, controlled everything from clock, play calls, stress. Did a really good job. When the guys found out he was going in, like, they were excited for him and they believed in him. They went out and played the way they needed to to make his job easier for him, too.

Ebbs and flow of the game in the second half, where you're able to score, push the lead a little bit, and defense gets stops, turnover. It changes the way you're forced to play a little bit in particular on third down, but Gaston did a really good job in all of it.

Wasn't that awesome for him? You know what I mean? Legitimately. Outside noise, you can try to ignore it. It's pretty hard to do in today's world. Talk about competitor resiliency coming out, putting between the uprights. Awesome for him. Doing things that we've seen in practice. Great, great job by him. The long one was a great kick.

All depends on what they're gonna call.

Boo's dynamic, athletic. Just as a young player, just how he's continuing to grow and where you trust everything that goes into it as a returner because that's essentially the quarterback back there and commanding and controlling and being a decision maker. Just continue to grow. Saw tonight, man, he's dynamic with it in his hands. It was awesome to get that from him tonight. And Boo, as a young player, is just gonna continue to get better and better in all areas. So I'm really, really proud of what he's done in a short amount of time here.

Got downhill. We were out of gaps. Some of that was just in our base front coverage. Some of it was pressure off the edge and we're not playing it the right way. So they hit us on a couple, but I felt like we could see and get better throughout the course of the night.

I think I said it to you guys earlier in the week, but you just keep stacking days and weeks. And it doesn't always happen when you want it to happen, but it will happen. And I think Boo's consistency really over the last month has really gained the trust from everybody on the staff for him to go operate the way he did tonight in that position.

Main man fronts tonight and we're trying to find ways to create some angles for us and control some extra defenders on the backside within their structure. But at the end of the day, big guys up front moved some people and our tight ends were a huge part of it all night long, as well. And obviously, the running backs ran pretty well.

– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.

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