Tennessee redshirt senior has strong take on Vols' preferred kickoff times
Two of the Tennessee Vols' kickoff times for the 2023 season were recently revealed. Tennessee's season opener on September 2 against Virginia, which will be played at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, is set for a 12:00 PM ET (11:00 AM local) kickoff. The Vols' matchup against Florida in Gainesville on September 16 will start at […]
Two of the Tennessee Vols' kickoff times for the 2023 season were recently revealed.
Tennessee's season opener on September 2 against Virginia, which will be played at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, is set for a 12:00 PM ET (11:00 AM local) kickoff.
The Vols' matchup against Florida in Gainesville on September 16 will start at 7:00 PM ET.
Earlier this month, Tennessee redshirt senior tight end Jacob Warren appeared on "Off the Hook Sports" and he was asked by host Dave Hooker about his preferred kickoff time.
Warren made it clear that Tennessee's locker room prefers earlier kickoffs, though he also made it a point to say that he appreciates the electricity of night games.
"I don't think it's a bad look to say that yeah, I'd much prefer to play in the morning," said Warren. "We don't not like night games. This is the thing…We're playing Florida, playing an SEC game, first SEC game (of the season). This is gonna be the biggest, most anticipated game, you know, at least as of right now, to see how we're going to perform at their place at night. This is something that is very exciting, right? It just creates this natural energy in the stadium."
"Whenever it's a night game, the lights come on, the sun goes down, music's loud, all that stuff. So definitely appreciate a night game and I appreciate, you know, what all comes with it. At the same time, I don't appreciate sitting in a hotel room for four hours. You know what I'm saying? Just waiting for a game and you know, just got to think about the game all day long and you know, be able to snap into that mindset of okay, it's game time. But you got those 12 o'clock kicks, you pretty much get up, you eat breakfast, and we're out the door."
"We practice in the mornings right now, so that's kind of natural for us," added Warren. "We're used to getting up, getting food, and then getting to it. So I would definitely prefer the earlier games."
Warren's teammate, Cooper Mays, echoed those sentiments during a recent appearance on "Off the Hook Sports".
"For a player, there's nothing better than going out and playing a game and getting it done and over with," said Mays. "Not that you don't enjoy it, but there's something that's so not fun about sitting and waiting around all day and just twiddling your thumbs and waiting until night time to do what you want to do. So I like waking up and getting after it."
"We practice early in the morning — that's how we practice," added Mays. "So when we wake up, we're ready to go. So I don't know if all teams do that, there's a lot of teams that don't, but I feel like that's a competitive advantage for us because we're ready to go. We're ready to play in the morning."
Ultimately, Tennessee has to be ready to go at any time in any location. And that's the way Josh Heupel coaches his team. But there's no doubt that the Vols have a competitive advantage in early games against teams that don't also practice early. So it's no surprise that Tennessee's players would prefer to use those early kickoff times to their advantage.
Featured image via Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel via Imagn Content Services, LLC
