Tennessee HC Josh Heupel gets real about a roster issue that hasn't been highly discussed
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel mentioned a roster issue during Vol Calls on Wednesday night that hasn't received nearly enough attention this season. Of course, one reason why it hasn't received much attention is because Heupel isn't the type of head coach that makes excuses. And he wasn't making any excuses on Wednesday night. […]
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel mentioned a roster issue during Vol Calls on Wednesday night that hasn't received nearly enough attention this season.
Of course, one reason why it hasn't received much attention is because Heupel isn't the type of head coach that makes excuses. And he wasn't making any excuses on Wednesday night. Instead, he was simply pointing out the reality of Tennessee's situation this season.
Heupel pointed out that Tennessee is essentially playing without an entire recruiting class, noting that there's a big gap between the older players on the team (seniors and redshirt seniors) and the younger players on the team (freshman and redshirt freshmen).
"When we got here, I think we were at 64 scholarship players, maybe, in year one that were actually actively with us during the fall," explained Heupel. "There’s an entire recruiting class that basically is gone from our roster, and really a majority of the one before that. And so we're old, and we're really young, and there's [a gap]. That hurts you when you get guys nicked up in a year like this, too — where you don't have a lot of guys who have been inside of your program for extended period of time and have developed. But at the end of the day, we're getting closer to getting back to the full allotment of scholarships and you know, we'll have better depth."
According to Tennessee's official roster, the Vols have six true juniors and 11 sophomores/redshirt sophomores on their roster (not counting walk-ons).
And three of those juniors are transfer players (Dont'e Thornton, Omarr Norman-Lott, and Andrej Karic).
The Vols' roster really isn't in a place right now where they can compete for an SEC Championship. I know that was the goal entering the 2023 season, and it should've been the goal (it should be the goal every year), but it was always going to be a tough goal to achieve while playing without a full deck. Overcoming a roster that's thin when it comes to juniors and sophomores in the SEC is like trying to win a NASCAR race at a superspeedway with less horsepower than everyone else on the track. It doesn't matter how good of a driver you are, there's no way to overcome a lack of horsepower.
Less than three years ago, there were national analysts who thought it would be years before the Vols even sniffed a bowl game again. Heupel has greatly exceeded expectations during his time at Tennessee. But let's not forget that he took over a disastrous situation that the Vols are still crawling out of. This was never going to be a two-year fix for Heupel and Tennessee.
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