The national narrative surrounding the Tennessee Vols entering the 2023 season centers on quarterback Joe Milton and whether or not he can take reach his full potential as a redshirt senior this fall.

National media analysts like to point to the fact that Milton has lost two starting jobs during his career — at Michigan and at Tennessee — as a reason to be hesitant about the Vols in 2023. 

Stopping the story at "Milton has lost two starting jobs" isn't exactly fair to the Vols' starting quarterback. 

There are reasons — things in Milton's control and things not in his control — for his early struggles as a quarterback. 

For starters, Milton arrived at Michigan in 2018 in part because of passing game coordinator Pep Hamilton. 

Hamilton, who has been an NFL offensive coordinator for a couple of different teams, recruited Milton hard to Michigan. And according to The Athletic, Milton completely trusted Hamilton. 

But Hamilton was fired after Milton's freshman season. So Milton went into 2019 with a new voice (Josh Gattis, now the offensive coordinator at Maryland) in his ear. 

Then in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit — which had an impact (in different ways) on every program in the nation. Milton won the job in 2020, but he couldn't keep it. The consistency wasn't there for Milton. The coach that made him want to go to Michigan was long gone. The magic just simply wasn't there. 

Fast forward to 2021 and Milton lands at Tennessee in another new situation. He relied on his incredible arm strength to make plays as he always had. His natural abilities led the Vols' coaches to believe that Milton was the guy who could run their up-tempo offense. 

But once the lights came on, Milton continued to struggle with consistency.

Milton led Tennessee to a 38-6 win against Bowling Green in the first game that Heupel ever coached for the Vols. Milton, however, completed just 11 of 23 attempts for 139 yards and one touchdown. The physical talent was evident. But it was clear that Milton wasn't quite ready for that stage. 

Part of that is because Milton still had to learn how to move on from bad plays — something he admitted earlier this summer. 

"It's really just the whole point of moving on," explained Milton earlier this month. "Our offense is so fast paced, you never know when the next play is going to score. I've had a lot of these moments happen where in the moment I'm still thinking about the previous play and the next play could have been a touchdown, but it was something that I was thinking about that messed me up to where I made a bad throw or had a bad read. I learned in practice that the next play could be a touchdown, so the moment you flush it the easier things will be."

Every quarterback develops at their own pace based on their environment and situation. 

For some quarterbacks, they enter a perfect situation and they have instant success (Trevor Lawrence at Clemson for example). 

Other quarterbacks bounce around a bit before finding that perfect situation (Hendon Hooker at Virginia Tech/Tennessee and Joe Burrow at Ohio State/LSU, among plenty of others). 

Milton obviously falls in the latter category. And while he still has a lot to prove, the idea that he can take a massive jump in 2023 and reach his full potential isn't completely absurd. This is the first time that Milton is in a stable situation with the same voices in his ear that he's heard the previous couple of seasons. For the first time in his career, Milton is in the perfect situation that all quarterbacks dream of being in. Now he just has to take advantage of his situation. 

Former Oklahoma player tells unbelievable story about Josh Heupel’s toughness and leadership as a player

A former Oklahoma player told an unbelievable story about Josh Heupel’s toughness and leadership as a player

Featured image via Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports