Everything Josh Heupel Said Following Tennessee Football's Win vs. Furman

Tennessee Vols Head Coach Josh Heupel spoke to the media after the Vols dominated Furman 56-9 to open their 2026-2027 with a win. There were multiple standouts on offense, including freshman QB Faizon Brandon and WR Mike Matthews. Both had great days that fans will get excited about. As for the defense, Xavier Gilliam had a show-stopping performance and deserves a lot of credit.

Josh Heupel's Opening Statement

“Good start today. There's a bunch that we are going to need to clean up here in all three phases of the game, but overall pleased with the performance. Defensively, we played extremely well. We don't turn it over, it’s probably a shutout. Those guys have grown, worked and competed extremely hard to go play and start the season that way. Proud of the effort there from our staff and our players. Offensively, the penalties early in the football game slowed a couple of drives down. After that, I thought we executed at a high level. Quarterbacks played smart and efficient today. All of them did. So, good start. A lot to learn from and move on to a big one next week.”

Josh Heupel on Faizon Brandon's Big Game

“I thought he managed what we were doing, the purpose of what we were trying to accomplish, really well. Communication part was really solid, and decision making was really good. Extended and made some plays with his feet, took care of the football, and there were a lot of positives from him. For a young player, he managed and stayed within himself extremely well, which is the expectation as a whole”

Josh Heupel on Xavier Gilliam’s 3 Sack Game

“Yeah, one of the strong leaders inside the room. It was awesome to see the team’s reaction; you know we talked about his performance-three sacks today. A model of consistency in how he works, prepares, competes. Same dude every day, and no surprise that he played really well today.”

Josh Heupel on Javin Gordon's Game

“JG’s (Javin Gordon) been phenomenal since he got here. He’s got great pace, feel, understands what we’re doing, runs extremely physical, so I’m not surprised they played and competed at a really high level. You look at all the backs together, obviously, one turnover that we have to be better and learn from, but all those guys ran extremely physical, ran with their pads down. Thought for most of the day, before I go watch the tape, I thought they did a good job pressing and hitting holes and made a couple bounce cuts. They were opportunistic. We’ve got great trust in all those guys.”

Overall, this game went how it was supposed to for Tennessee when they play an inferior opponent. Next week will be a bigger challenge when they welcome in Georgia Tech from the ACC.

For the rest of what was said by Josh Heupel watch on.

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