Former ESPN host has the best take yet on Hendon Hooker and the Tennessee Vols' offense
There have been a lot of falsehoods put out about Hendon Hooker and the Tennessee Vols' offense over the last couple of months. Tennessee's offense is unique with its wide splits, up-tempo pace, and deep-choice routes. And because it's different, analysts like to suggest that it doesn't effectively prepare quarterbacks for the NFL. Various analysts […]
There have been a lot of falsehoods put out about Hendon Hooker and the Tennessee Vols' offense over the last couple of months.
Tennessee's offense is unique with its wide splits, up-tempo pace, and deep-choice routes. And because it's different, analysts like to suggest that it doesn't effectively prepare quarterbacks for the NFL.
Various analysts have tossed out every criticism imaginable, from calling Tennesse's offense a "gimmick" to erroneously suggesting that the Vols run the Air Raid offense (UT's offense is very different than the Air Raid attack…the Vols, for example, are much more balanced in the run/pass game).
Former ESPN host Trey Wingo, who left the network in 2020 after working as a host for the sports network for over 20 years, had the best take yet this week on Tennessee's offense.
Wingo, who puts out content for Pro Football Network (he reportedly has an equity stake in the company), said this week that Hooker is his No. 3 quarterback in the 2023 NFL Draft. The former ESPN employee has Hooker above Kentucky's Will Levis and Florida's Anthony Richardson.
Part of the reason that Wingo has Hooker above Levis and Richardson is because he feels like Hooker ran a "complex offense" at Tennessee.
From Pro Football Network: I like Hendon Hooker a lot better than Anthony Richardson and Will Levis. He just got hurt. If Hooker hadn’t torn his ACL, I think he’d be drafted a lot higher than where he’s projected. He ran a complex offense at Tennessee and in a really, really difficult league. You go back and watch Stroud play at Ohio State, half the time he’s doing this looking over to the sidelines because that’s the way they run the program. Hooker, I think, has the potential to be better than any of these guys.
Wingo's take is more in line with Vols head coach Josh Heupel's take on Tennessee's offense. Heupel said earlier this spring that he believes the Vols put more on the quarterback than any program in the nation.
“Our guys control everything," said Heupel earlier this month. "I don’t think there’s anybody in America that puts more on their quarterbacks. Run-run checks, run-pass checks, loaded boxes, alerts, kills, they’ve got to do it all. So he’s (QB Joe Milton) highly instrumental in the efficiency and effectiveness of our running game.”
The criticism of Tennessee's offense has mostly come from draft analysts and not NFL teams. There's no doubt that what the Vols do is different, but that doesn't mean it should be a negative for players like Hooker when it comes to playing at the next level. The playcalls are different, but Hooker, if anything, should be better equipped to read defenses in the NFL because he spent the last two years of his collegiate career making presnap reads on nearly every snap.
Kudos to Wingo for not falling into the groupthink mentality and slamming Tennessee's offense just because it's different.
