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.
The 1993 Vols also amassed a school-record 63 touchdowns, with this year's team having that mark within reach as well after compiling 61 to this point.
"We've adjusted so quickly this year because we all bought in," redshirt junior receiver Cedric Tillman said. "Nobody was begging for the ball or demanding other things. Everybody was bought into the system, and that made things run more smoothly."
PUTTING UP THE POINTS
1993 — 484 points2016 — 473 points2021 — 466 points1990 — 465 points2015 — 457 points2007 — 455 pointsSource: UT football media guide
Tennessee began spring practice with Heupel, offensive coordinator Alex Golesh, quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle and offensive line coach Glen Elarbee having relocated from the University of Central Florida, which provided familiarity on that front. Harrison Bailey, Brian Maurer and Virginia Tech graduate transfer Hendon Hooker were the quarterbacks who vied during those first 15 practices, with Michigan graduate transfer Joe Milton announcing in late April that he would be joining the mix.
The coaches promised an exciting, up-tempo attack, and that attack has produced 38.8 points per game to rank ninth nationally and third in the Southeastern Conference behind Alabama and Georgia.
"Base offense was literally all we were practicing on day one of spring ball, so the guys now can play fast because they're not thinking," Golesh said. "That's really more than anything as far as how fast we play - the ability to see it or hear it and recognize it, seeing what a defense looks like and being able to play and react fast. That has been monumental for our offense and for the guys within the system."
Tennessee will head to Nashville with Hooker ranked third nationally in efficiency and with Tillman needing 69 yards for a 1,000-yard receiving season, and neither expressed surprise when asked about the first-year success.
"I saw it early," Tillman said. "In the spring game, we got to see how explosive this offense could be. We missed on a couple of opportunities in the first game, but we saw potentially what we could do. It definitely didn't shock me."
Said Hooker: "From day one, the first thing we all thought about was that we were putting points on the board. I'm happy to see that it happened."
Certainly there are plays the Vols would love to have back from the regular season, most notably Jimmy Calloway's fourth-down drop during the third quarter at Florida and Milton's decision to run on the final play against Ole Miss. Yet it's hard to find too much fault in a unit averaging 212.0 rushing yards and 247.0 passing yards per game, especially considering last year's averages were 141.5 and 204.7 against a conference-only schedule.
As for the credit, there is plenty to go around, but it typically starts with Heupel.
"He's been very hands-on with the players," Jones said. "He was part of a national championship at Oklahoma (as the starting Sooners quarterback in 2000), so he knows how to relate to us. He knew what we had been going through, and he knew how to solve problems.
"It was all about buying in, and that's what the team did."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.