Ahead of Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel met with the media to preview the Vols' game against Mississippi State.

Here's everything he said.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

Hope everybody's doing great. Good luck to Coach Caldwell and Coach Barnes as they get ready to tip-off their seasons here in the the next couple of days. Looking forward to this Saturday with our team. You know, last SEC home game for us, another pivotal game on the schedule. Mississippi State team that's continuing to get better throughout the course of the season really in every phase and it'll be a great environment. Look forward to seeing our fans. They've been awesome here during this run of home games. Hopefully, they rest up and are ready to roll this Saturday, too. Looking forward to this week of preparation and getting ready to go play.

Was really good decision making. Did some good things controlling the run game, too, that a lot of people don't see and made plays as well. There's some really special plays by him during the course of the game and continued to compete extremely hard, played it independent and continuing to grow as a player. Really good performance.

Playoff rankings at this point don't matter. You don't have control over it. What you have control over is your preparation and how you play. And ultimately, that determines where you're at or where you're not at. For this football team understanding that we got to continue to grow and get better and control those things that we're in control of. This team's got to continue to get better. It will be out on Tuesday night. Man, you remember what the first rankings were last year? I don't either. So it doesn't matter. What they remember is where you finish here as November wraps up.

In those critical moments, him being him, it's needed but it's also special from a young guy to be able to handle everything that's going on within the scope of the game. That's one of the things that he's done pretty well throughout the course of the season. There's some things that I want back, he wants back, but, his ability as a young player to go play and being willing to play on the edge, which you have to at that position, it's rare to have a young guy that's able to do that.

If you've seen me kick, you'd know I'm probably not the guy to help him with his swing. Max hit the ball really well majority of the year and he hits it that way in practice, too. For him, resetting from kick to kick, but from week to week, too. It's important for him, just like any other player, to have a great week of preparation. I just think from first kick to the second kick, he kind of over overcorrected and kind of did the same thing on the third one, too. Got to find your groove, hit your sweet spot and go play ball.

Young guy just when he came in here had to have a couple of surgeries and was limited during the course of spring ball and some of summer because of that. Kind of built him throughout the course of training camp as far as the physical part of the game. And for a young guy, he's really mature, really consistent in how he practices. And because of that, he's just continued to grow throughout the course of the season. It's a great example of special teams for young guys, being an awesome launching point at times, gained confidence, understand the speed and the flow of the game. He went in the other night and it was seamless for him.

I think his growth in the understanding of what we're doing, allowing his physical traits to take over and make some of the plays that he has, it's tying all of those things in together. But, Brooksy, man, one of the hardest workers on the football team, willing to do anything and everything. Previous years, you guys have seen how important that he is to the special teams part of it. And guys like that, when they get their opportunity, they typically go take advantage of it like he has up until this point. We're gonna need him continue to make plays as we go down this stretch.

It helps if our guys approach it the right way and that can happen through any circumstance that you're facing. It comes down to your mental makeup, your competitive nature and understanding that there's an opponent on Saturdays, but the real measuring stick is you're competing against yourself and helping our football team be their best.

Players making plays. Great job by Nico, big-time play, understanding all the bodies where they're at, having the physical traits to be able to make that throw and then Kitselman being on the same page and making a play.

I just think he continues to get better in what they're doing. Young player that is continuing to get better, but got a good future in front of him. They have some dynamic playmakers out on the outside and he's done a good job of decision-making and continuing to become more and more accurate and decisive with the football. He's playing really well.

It takes all 11. You got to have gap integrity. We got out of gaps a couple times and that creates the explosive plays that you saw from them. It comes down to communication, everybody being tied in together.

I've known Jeff for a long time dating all the way back to Oklahoma when he was still a student there. Great respect for him, his staff. It's not just Jeff that I know. I know a bunch of their guys and good people, good coaches and doing a good job down there. It'll be unique in that I've sat in the staff room with those guys before.

We do have to play cleaner football. I told the guys today, like, don't focus on what the result in the first half you want. We want to start fast obviously, but focus on the details of your job and that comes every day in our practices, our meetings, walk through all of it being tied in together. We need to, we want to start a lot faster than we have here in the last few weeks. So we're capable of it. Got to take advantage of things and do the simple things at a high level in particular down in the red zone where we've had to kick too many field goals the last few weeks. We've had turnovers, we've gotten behind the chains, things that we control and gotta be better.

Man, no. This is, it's been a unique run here in the first half for sure.

Everything gets tighter down there. Self inflicted wounds always hurt you, but they hurt you even more down there because the windows are tighter if you're throwing the football, the bodies are tighter in the run game. We gotta execute at a higher level and that's not third down, but it's third down, too. It's first and second down, too. So it's like not major things, major overhauls. Sorry. I paused there just to make sure I was phrasing it the right way. It's really ordinary things and we can do that. We control that.

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