NASHVILLE — Given the here and now of Tennessee football following last season’s run to an 11-2 record and the Orange Bowl championship, being able to avoid an NCAA bowl ban is obviously a huge dose of good news for the program.
Volunteers third-year coach Josh Heupel was certainly relieved to learn of last Friday’s verdict, and he will always believe that not self-imposing a bowl ban his first season was the correct decision. Tennessee was coming off a 3-7 collapse under former coach Jeremy Pruitt that is now recognized as 0-7, but the Vols went a surprising 7-5 during the 2021 regular season before dropping a 48-45 overtime decision to Purdue in the Music City Bowl.
“We had 35 guys who left our program,” Heupel said Thursday as Southeastern Conference Media Days came to a close. “The guys who were around were the guys who cared about the ‘Power T’ and cared about their teammates. In all reality, they were guys who weren’t a part of what was going on.
“I think it’s tough to punish innocent guys, so I felt it was extremely important that we tried to navigate that space the right way and allow those guys to compete. It was absolutely the right thing to do.”
Heupel learned last Thursday night that the NCAA decision would be revealed last Friday around noon. He was out of town along with several of his assistant coaches, so he orchestrated a Zoom meeting with his staff and players.