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Heupel: Impossible for 11th-ranked Vols to block out the noise

Tennessee Athletics photo by Emma Corona / A massive sea of orange and white is expected for Saturday afternoon’s football showdown between No. 11 Tennessee and No. 20 Florida inside Neyland Stadium.
Tennessee Athletics photo by Emma Corona / A massive sea of orange and white is expected for Saturday afternoon’s football showdown between No. 11 Tennessee and No. 20 Florida inside Neyland Stadium. Tennessee Athletics photo by Emma Corona / A massive sea of orange and white is expected for Saturday afternoon’s football showdown between No. 11 Tennessee and No. 20 Florida inside Neyland Stadium.

By David Paschall 3 min read

There have been plenty of recent occasions in which Tennessee has been the talk of the college football world for all the wrong reasons.

The tumultuous coaching search of 2017 that followed the firing of Butch Jones. The 2019 opening loss to Georgia State. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of last year, when the school fired Jeremy Pruitt amid university and NCAA investigations.

Not now.

Tennessee’s meteoric rise from the ashes in Josh Heupel’s 20 months at the helm has resulted in a Saturday afternoon showdown between the No. 11 Volunteers and the No. 20 Gators inside a sold-out Neyland Stadium. The latest chapter between Southeastern Conference Eastern Division rivals not only earned the league’s coveted CBS broadcast time slot but a visit from ESPN’s “College GameDay” show, with Heupel allowing his players to savor the moment.

“It’s impossible to block out the noise in today’s world,” Heupel said. “It’s absolutely impossible. They’re going to see it and hear it, and you can’t let it affect what matters, which is your preparation.