When Tennessee limped to its 3-7 finish last football season with a 34-13 loss to Texas A&M and then endured its tumultuous January with the firing of Jeremy Pruitt and multiple player departures through the NCAA transfer portal, it was hard to paint a rosy picture in Josh Heupel’s debut year.
A top-10 scoring offense nationally was out of the question, but a top-10 scoring offense is what the Volunteers will be taking into Nashville on Dec. 30 for the Music City Bowl against Purdue.
“After last year’s season with the turnaround and the new coaches coming in, I didn’t know what was going to happen, honestly,” Vols sixth-year senior receiver Velus Jones Jr. said. “I just took a leap of faith, and I was going to stick it out. I’ve been truly blessed to have a coach like Coach Heupel come in and turn this thing around with a positive mindset.
“Everything he told us from the beginning, he lived up to it, and that’s something I can really respect.”
Bowl motivation comes in different shapes and sizes these days, but the Vols not only have a chance to cap Heupel’s inaugural season with an eighth win but can set a program standard. Tennessee racked up 466 points during the regular season and aims to top the 484 points compiled by the 1993 team during Phillip Fulmer’s first full year at the helm.