Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel’s second season with the program remains the team’s most impressive season in Knoxville to date.
Finishing with 11 wins, the most wins under any Tennessee coach since Phillip Fulmer in 2007, while averaging the most points scored in college football, Heupel set the tone with a high-paced offense led by the likes of Hendon Hooker, Jalin Hyatt and Cedric Tillman.
With all three players leaving to play professionally the proceeding season, the Vols were left with more questions than answers heading into the 2023 campaign, especially on the offensive side of the football.
What remained was an offense led by quarterback Joe Milton III, a transfer from the University of Michigan who had spent the past two seasons as the Vols starter-turned-backup for Hooker.
The Vols would fall under the double-digit win mark under Milton, finishing the 2023 year at 8-4, with the team’s final win of the season delivered not by Milton, but by true freshman Nico Iamaleava.
Iamaleava, a five-star out of the 2023 recruiting cycle, takes the reins at quarterback this season with Milton departing for New England. Iamaleava represents the team’s third starting quarterback in as many seasons, but he has the potential to put Heupel’s offense back on the track Hooker set in the 2022 season.
“Nico’s got a really good command of what we’re doing offensively,” Heupel said. “We’ve seen that throughout this offseason, but really in his development from last fall, too. He’s got great comfort. There’s a lot that goes into our quarterback play from protection. It could be changing the protection. Our run game, there’s a lot of things that go into it. That’s RPO tags, it’s loaded box, it’s all those things. So he’s got great command of what we’re doing.”
While quarterback is undoubtedly the focal point, the wide receiver room is a glaring difference compared to last season.
Graduate Bru McCoy is yet again the headliner of the receiver corp after a leg injury against South Carolina sidelined him the rest of the 2023 season. Returning alongside McCoy is redshirt junior Squirrel White, Chas Nimrod and Kaleb Webb who all made waves at the first two scrimmages.
“I thought our wideouts did a good job of operation,” said Heupel. “Chris Brazzell, obviously Squirrel. But seeing Chas and Kaleb out there competing, playing extremely well. I thought the quarterbacks operated really well for almost the entire night, so it was good work.”
A transfer out of Tulane, Chris Brazzell II tallied 722 yards in his final season with the Green Waves over 15 games, including 45 receptions and five touchdowns. Brazzell and Iamaleava are poised for big years with the Vols, and their connection is certainly reason for excitement towards this 2024 offense.
Last season saw the Vols return to the run game in a big way, their offensive identity quickly flipping from a passing first team to a run-heavy offense in just one season.
This season, the Vols are eyeing to balance the equation out again, and the bolstered receiver room will play a large factor in giving the run game breathing room.
The 2023 Vols offense by no means was a failure, yet the team ended the season feeling as if points were left on the table. Offensive line injuries, thin receiver depth and shaky third-down offense all played factors in the decline in production.
With a strong returning offensive line, including big-time LSU transfer Lance Heard and returning senior John Campbell Jr., to go along with the budding skill position rooms, the Vols have all the tools in place to bring the offense back into the limelight of college football.
