NASHVILLE — To be technical, the Tennessee Volunteers haven’t taken steps under football coach Josh Heupel.
They’ve taken leaps.
Tennessee has posted two consecutive years of four-win jumps, going 7-6 in Heupel’s first season following the 3-7 finale of Jeremy Pruitt and soaring to an 11-2 record a year ago that included a long-awaited win over longtime rival Alabama and a surprisingly thorough triumph over Clemson in the Orange Bowl. The Vols actually ascended to No. 1 in the College Football Playoff rankings in early November before losing at Georgia, which went on to win the Southeastern Conference and a second straight national championship.
So what’s the next step in Knoxville?
“The next step is winning the East,” Tennessee sixth-year senior quarterback Joe Milton III said Thursday as SEC media days concluded inside the Grand Hyatt Nashville. “That’s our main focus, and that’s our main goal as a team. Coach Heup preaches that every day, and that’s what we try and live up to.”
Winning the East was once a fairly regular accomplishment for Tennessee, which claimed five division titles in the 11-season stretch from 1997 to 2007. There have been none since, however, as Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs have applied a stranglehold on that side with five of the last six divisional crowns.
Georgia visits Neyland Stadium on Nov. 18, but the Vols weren’t biting much Thursday when asked about that potential showdown.
“We aren’t there yet,” senior defensive lineman Omari Thomas said. “We’re just getting ready for our opening game against Virginia in Nashville. When we get to it, we’ll attack that task, but I feel that we’re a pretty good team, and I feel like that we’re going to win the East — I hope so.”
Of course, Tennessee even being eligible to compete for the East wasn’t a complete given until the NCAA’s ruling released last Friday in which the Vols avoided a postseason ban.
“I’m sure that would have been tough, but we don’t have to deal with it,” Thomas said with a smile.
Heupel admitted Thursday that he is a big “next step” guy, and he has taken a bunch of them since arriving in January 2021 and immediately having to play catch-up after 35 players left the program via the transfer portal. He never put a ceiling on what his program could accomplish, only seeking to get as good as possible as fast as possible.
An Orange Bowl championship within two years qualifies as rather rapid, but what’s done is done.
“We’re constantly talking about how we’re going to improve,” Heupel said. “You put your goals out in front of your football team when you start any quarter of your offseason, which can be January to the beginning of spring ball to when we start training camp, but at the end of the day it becomes about your daily accountability to your habits and your teammates and about your growth and competing extremely hard every day.
“There were a lot of great moments last year for sure, but at the end of the day, we didn’t reach our goals. We had to take some steps this offseason, and I really like what we’ve done.”
Heupel was accompanied to media days Thursday by Milton, Thomas and sixth-year tight end Jacob Warren. Milton transferred to Tennessee in the spring of 2021 after beginning his career at Michigan, so Warren was the representative who has experienced the most career aches and pains.
“It’s been a roller-coaster, and without saying anything about how it was in the past, this is where I want to be right now,” Warren said. “I can’t be happier with where this program is and where I am and the coaches and my teammates and everything like that.
“I think we’re all super happy with where we are now, and I guess that’s all that matters, right?”
Warren added that the goal since he’s been at Tennessee has been to win the East, but the Vols had not contended during most of his career, going 2-6 within the league in 2018 and 3-7 in 2020. Last year’s Vols, however, knocked off Florida and Alabama and routed LSU and Kentucky on their way to a 4-0 league start.
The 27-13 loss in Athens put the Vols on the outside looking in, but their eventual 6-2 league record was the best since attaining the same mark in 2007.
“It’s right there in front of us, and we expect to do it,” Warren said. “Last year, we obviously had our opportunities and weren’t able to reach our goals, but we’re going to go out there this year and do everything we can.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.