Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel is extremely smart with his public comments.

Heupel is generous when it comes to his time with his reporters, but he almost always stays far away from controversy.

The second-year Vols head coach will carefully dance around a question to avoid giving an answer that will be used against him down the road.

Even though this approach is natural for Heupel, I'm sure there have still been some times he's had to bite his tongue over the last 18 months.

As is customary with every new Tennessee head coach, Heupel had quite the mess to clean up when he was hired in early 2021.

Most of that mess came from the previous coaching staff. An NCAA investigation and a lack of development put the program in a bad place. The deck was essentially stacked against Heupel when he got to Tennessee.

Heupel, however, has never used the previous regime as an excuse. He's never pointed to the lack of development under the previous staff as an obstacle that he and his staff have had to overcome. Heupel just put his head down and went to work.

On Thursday, though, Vols wide receivers coach Kelsey Pope subtly referenced the lack of development under the previous coaching staff.

Pope was asked by reporters on Thursday whether or not he thinks Tennessee's offense is receiver friendly.

The first-year wide receivers coach dove into an answer that cited the development of Vols wide receivers Cedric Tillman and Velus Jones Jr under Heupel.

"I think it's absolutely that (receiver friendly) and it's a message to the younger guys in high school," said Pope. "When you're looking for an offense to really be prolific in, you see Ced and Velus and what they did before we got here and you see what they did when we got here. It's like something off of a movie. It's real."

"I think this offense – if you're a receiver and you want to be productive, you want to get developed and you want to be a guy, I think this offense for sure is a receiver-friendly offense, no doubt."

Pope didn't say anything out of the way, but he made sure to point out that Jones and Tillman saw their college careers take off because of Heupel and his staff.

Jones and Tillman were basically afterthoughts before Heupel arrived. A year later and Jones is a rookie in the NFL with the Chicago Bears who's running with the first team offense while Tillman is the SEC's leading returning wide receiver.

That's insane development.

And Tennessee's coaches need to be touting that development. It's important that recruits understand how effective Heupel and his staff are at developing players. Part of that is recognizing where players were when Heupel arrived and where they are now.

Pope's comments were a perfect way of doing that. He didn't personally attack anyone, but he made sure folks know that players are now getting the development they weren't getting during the Jeremy Pruitt era.

Featured image via Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK