Josh Heupel Shares Honest Statement on Having a Young Roster This Football Season

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel took the stage for the first time this spring, and here is what he had to say.

Josh Heupel exits the field after winning a game between Tennessee and Alabama at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn., Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (Amidst the chaos of the field storming I realized I could get in the line of Heupel coming off the field. It's hard to get a coach shot during a field storming so I was glad to be in the right place at the right time.) / Caitie McMekin/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel took the stage for the first time this spring, and here is what he had to say.

The Tennessee Volunteers kicked off spring ball on Friday as part of their first practice since being defeated in the round of 12 in the playoffs.

Josh Heupel spoke with the media on Friday and was asked about his newest squad and how his roster is younger than it typically is.

“I do feel like, first of all, in college football, there’s always a cycle,” Heupel said to the media. “Typically, you end up having a bunch of young guys inside of your roster. That’s been the case for us since we’ve been here. This group of young guys have been really mature. I’m just talking about their approach, how they’ve handled offseason workouts, to what daily life looks like as a college athlete. The extra things that they got to do to give themselves a chance to be prepared for day one out on the practice field, let alone what’s coming as we continue to grow through the spring. It’s been a really positive group. They’ve blended into the culture, the expectations of accountability, building trust, and how we attack everything that we’re doing. They’ve handled that really well. There’s a bunch of young guys on our roster, and when you go through spring ball, man, it’s about fundamental development. It’s about technique. It’s about learning how to play from snap to whistle. It’s learning how to reset from play to play. There’s a ton of growth that has to happen, but we have a ton of growth that we got to take them through, and it starts with all of those things that to get them to where they need to be. And we don’t kick off until, I don’t know what the date is, but September, there’s a long journey that we got to go through and they gotta grow through that.”

Tennessee has a lot of new faces in camp, like George MacIntyre, Jack VanDorselaer, and Tre Poteat, who all took the stage this morning.

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