After Tennessee's loss to Arkansas, Vols head coach Josh Heupel met with the media.
Here's everything he had to say.
TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM
Opening statement
Disappointing night for us as a football team. I didn’t think we handled or started fast. Didn’t do the ordinary things at a high level. Offensively, hurt ourselves consistently there in the first half. They were able to extend some drives, some third-down conversions. End of the day, starting with me, it wasn’t good enough tonight and between all three phases, we’ve got to find a way to be on the right side of the scoreboard and we've got to get better. So at this point you got an opportunity to come together, pull harder, fight stronger, play for each other and continue to grow. Still a lot out there, obviously, as everybody sees but the main thing is we got to continue to get better.
On what the issues are with Tennessee's offense
I mean, just early, we find a way to get ourselves behind the chains early. You look at the first three drives, there was something that really hurt us. Man downfield, false start, holding, whatever it might’ve been. So you do that, you put their time of possession together and all of a sudden you’re looking at the scoreboard the way it was at the end of the first half. We've got to play smarter, we've got to play better up front. We've got to play better with our skill players on the perimeter and we've got to play better at quarterback. But again, it starts with me. We got all get better.
On offensive line struggles
Conglomerate of multiple things. Some of it me, some of it our personnel not executing. So it’s a combination of all that.
On not kicking a field goal before half
Just felt like it was just on the outside of it. I know the wind had changed just a little bit. It was a conversation that we had and that was a decision I made to try to work toward the sideline and get us one more shot
On the running into the kicker call
We were in a safe call, playing the fake. He is gonna contain the shield right there. As he got hit, when I talked to the official, I guess he may have hit him with his hands to the face, too. I didn’t see the entire clip of it, but that’s what I was told
On if he let Arkansas score at the end of the game
Yeah, at the very end of it, just with the clock timeout situations that we had trying to give ourselves a chance to go answer.
On presnap penalties
Earlier was on us, whether they clapped or not on one or two of them, I don’t know. We’ll see when we watch the tape.
On the final play of the game
Yeah, it’s a full concept read. He ended up scrambling off of it. End of the day, in that scenario, you've got to get the ball up and give one of your guys an opportunity to go make a play. Nico, just like me, and just like our football team, wishes that we had played better. That situation, you can’t keep the ball in your hands. You want to give somebody an opportunity to go make a play. He’s disappointed with it, but he’s got to come back and bounce back from it. He’s played way too good not to respond the right way and I know he will.
On why another quarterback ran out of bounds on the final play
Different situations. Older quarterback vs. first guy experienced.
On the state of college football having upsets
Says what I’m pretty sure I said on Monday. Man, in this league, you better come to play really good football, play smart football every single Saturday. Separation in this league is really tight and you know, we got to get better. We come back in, we got to get better and get ready to roll next week and we haven’t been at home in a while. Look forward to seeing our fans. We got to go play really good football to give ourselves a chance to go win.
On Arkansas' long first half drives
Running the football, converting on third down and vice versa. We weren’t doing that. Weren’t converting on third down. We converted a couple third downs early in the third quarter, moved the ball to score points.
On Squirrel White, Bru McCoy injuries
I don’t (have an update). We will find out as we go.
On Arkansas stopping the run
You know, structure was a little bit different than what they had shown on tape. I thought we adjusted after the first drive. As much as anything, again, shooting ourselves in the foot early and playing from behind the sticks and, you know, then not being efficient on third down. So you put those two things together, that’s how you have a half like we did.
On the message to the team
Man, pretty simple. When moments like this happen, the outside world’s gonna have a narrative for you. We talk about it when it’s going good and tonight it didn’t go good. You've got to look at your teammates in the eye. Those are the opinions that matter. You've got to continue to pull the rope harder. We've got to continue to grow. Good teams get better throughout the course of the year. Still have a chance to be a really good football team.
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