Tennessee football went on the road and downed Vanderbilt 36-23 to all but officially clinch a spot in the playoffs.

After the game, head coach Josh Heupel met with the media.

Here's everything he said.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

Just proud of our football team. All week, we talked about finishing the regular season the right way and gotta be a man to do that. And they prepared the right way, practiced the right way. Didn't start the right way. Competitive composure, belief in the guys around you, kept fighting and flipped the game there in the second quarter and early third. Defensively, I thought we did a great job bottling him up all day long, handling the run game and really limiting their pass game until the the late drive in fourth. And offensively, after the turnover early, settled in the ball game and maximized our opportunities for the most part. Just a good football game. Special teams, some things that we can do better. But again, you just look at the the work these guys have put in. Really proud for them to go finish and play the way that they did here. It's a good team that we just got done playing. You look at their scores against some of the best teams in America, you'll realize that. Great way to finish the season. Really proud of our guys.

Not exactly the way you'd design it... I think this team as a whole, one of its greatest strengths is its competitive makeup and resiliency and the ability to just go play the next snap. Something that we talk about and try to emulate throughout the year, not just during the season, but it's a mature group of competitors and certainly our veterans, our older leaders operate that way, but our young guys have that competitive mindset, too. It's one of the strengths of this football team. It's really special.

It's finishing the way that we needed to and that we wanted to, always sweet. And these guys earn the right for this to be a big game. They went out, they took it. You gotta take it as a competitor when you're in the arena. It was a lot of fun inside of that locker room. Absolutely. Can't wait to get back and see the rest of our guys.

It's not balanced, it's hard... Best league in America, every road game is a real road game. It's hard to win at home or on the road. The depth of this league, everybody's got bigs up front, first two levels. They're long, big, explosive. Hits are real. I already said that road games are real inside of this league. It's hard to win and the totality of the season is, it's different. It's a special group to be able to handle the ups and the downs, to keep competing, to push forward and to finish the season the way that we have. Really proud of these guys.

I think that this one was probably testing us as much as any we have had.

I don't even know if I have the right words to describe D-Samp and what he means to our team, just as a player and as a leader. I don't know if anybody's played the position better than he has this year. Especially, he's dynamic, plays great without the ball in his hands and talk about, got it when the ball is in his hands, making things happen. Dynamic plays, muddy threes and fours. He's special, man. He's played the position this year as well as anybody I've ever had.

I thought with everything that had transpired early in the football game, being pushed back on that and go execute and make it tight and then, you know, flip it there at the end was was huge. Nico, I just thought played really well throughout the course of the the football game. He had the one throw that he'd like to have back that was a pick. He's flattened out the throw. He played really well today. Decision making our tags, down the field throws, checking it down when everything was sinking out. We thought he saw everything really well today and then had the ability to to scramble and make plays, which is part of his game. Had some huge pulls in in the the run game off of edge defenders. Just played really good football today.

It's a guy that throughout the course has had a little bit of ebbs and and flows, ups and downs, but, man, I just feel like he's right on the brink of being what he's capable of. And it's a credit to him, the investment that he's made, opportunity today. I thought he just did a really good job of of winning the one-on-ones, understanding coverage, settling down in zones. Him and Nico were on the same page. I thoughtChris played extremely well, but all of those guys really did. Really good job by them all day long.

Young guys. We talked about young guys having to be ready. Mike's a young guy, but man, did a great job in spring ball. Then gets hurt and missed too much time in the training camp and just had to battle through that a little bit in the early part of the season. Been super consistent and a really good practice player. And I knew the last two, three games, you can just see it coming. It's a credit to him to just keep investing when it's not necessarily exactly what he thought it would be and understanding that there's still a lot out there for him. He played played really good football today. Everybody's gonna see the balls that were in his hands. There's a couple of things where coverage didn't take Nico to that side right away, but I thought he did a great job. And then he played without the ball extremely well. He had some big time perimeter blocks, too, that I thought he executed extremely well. He's he's a tough nose as kid, man, and highly competitive and got a great future in front of him.

Quarterback ain't ever gonna be perfect. Best ones I've ever been around, guys that have won Heisman trophies and guys that should have been in New York City that weren't, they don't ever play perfect. I think I was the only one that ever played it perfect. But quarterbacks, to me, you grade them based on how they respond to the most critical situations and when it's not going well. That guy is a warrior, fierce competitor, you guys have heard me say it all year, t's just gonna continue to get better. The veteran guys, their competitive composure, their ability to just go play the next play. It's a tribute to who they are. Yes, they've impacted the young guys that way, too, but that team room, it really does, it's got elite competitive composure to just go play. And some of that's their makeup, some of that's the belief in the guys on the other side of the line from the other unit that we have. Like, we know we got good players and we know we're gonna play, at some point, we're gonna dig in and play well in all three phases. So, it's special part of the makeup of this team and proud of those guys.

Great players make great players. Mod, he's a playmaker. His best football is still in front of him is what I'm saying. Great athlete that's continuing to grow in the fundamentals of the position. His wide receiver skills as a high school guy, I think, are a part of his makeup as a DB. When the ball's up in the air, he doesn't panic. He knows how to go and attack the football. He understands body position. Just an elite play.

We had a few possessions where we were backed up for different reasons. The punter banged the ball. Today, some just got on the ground and weren't in position to catch it. They got friendly roles. I thought the end of the the first half, finishing it, going and getting seven and then starting fast in in the third quarter. What happened to us early in the football game, it flipped quickly where you're on the wrong side of it and then we were able to flip it back. The drive was an extended drive, drains the clock. It just changed the way the game was played down the stretch.

It's something that we were intentional on first half meeting after the bowl game last year. Just talked about that we gotta play more guys. And some of that, I've never really talked about it, never made an excuse for it, but when we got here, I had our first spring, 55 scholarship players, 28 scholarship reductions that we had to take. There's a growth to what we were gonna need to do as a program and intentionally growing those young guys, giving them opportunities early making sure that we have the depth that we have. That's our our coaching staff, our young coaches. It's everybody in the building investing in those guys and then it's those guys understanding that it's a process. It's a journey to getting to where you need to be to play championship caliber football. It's a credit to those guys for continuing to invest. And, obviously, we're much deeper football team and there's not enough words to describe how much that's meant to us in this conference schedule.

It's the next step for us as a program. And when I say that, you look at what we've been able to do since I've been here, especially the last three years including this one. There's an expectation from our staff and our players. It was a goal, but there was an expectation to be in this. That comes from the work that everybody's put in and who we have in the building. Proud of these guys for executing and putting us in a position to be there. Now the next season starts, what are we gonna do with it?

– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.

– ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.

– SUBSCRIBE TO THE VOLREPORT YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

– FOLLOW VOLREPORT ON TWITTER: @TennesseeRivals, @ByNoahTaylor, @RyanTSylvia, @Dale_Dowden, @ShayneP_Media.