Tennessee will be a veteran football team this season.
The Volunteers are overrun with youth.
As Josh Heupel approaches his third autumn in Knoxville, both of those statements are accurate.
When the Vols face Virginia in Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on Sept. 2, they will do so with more than 30 scholarship seniors and more than 30 scholarship redshirt or true freshmen. The quarterback room headed by sixth-year senior Joe Milton III and five-star freshman Nico Iamaleava is reflective of multiple position areas on the Tennessee roster.
“There are essentially two recruiting classes that are gone from our roster, and that’s how you end up with the numbers kind of being what they are,” Heupel said last week at Southeastern Conference Media Days in Nashville. “There is a unique blend of experience and guys who have been inside our program and have helped lay the foundation, and there are a lot of young guys who have come into it.”