There's a small thing that Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel and his offensive staff are doing that's leading to major success at UT.

Unsurprisingly, it has to do with the quarterback position — Heupel's area of expertise.

Vols quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle spoke this week about the way the coaching staff handles installing plays with quarterback Hendon Hooker.

Halzle told reporters that Hooker has the freedom to toss a play out of the playbook if he's not comfortable with it.

"With Hendon, he's at the point right now the way he's playing, you got an open book with him, you feel comfortable," said Halzle. "He'll operate anything you put him out there [in]. And the other thing is what we've talked about on his confidence side of it — he will now let us know, if he's like 'hey, I'm not comfortable with that, I don't like that' — and we know if he's saying that, it's gone. He's not just saying it because he's uncomfortable or he's worried about it. He's like, 'nah, I don't like this, it doesn't fit. I don't like how it's timing up.' Cool, it's out. So, we have that kind of bond and rapport now where we can call anything."

"He trusts us that what we're putting in the game makes sense and then if it doesn't work for either one, we can pull it, which makes it on our end a lot easier to game plan on the front end."

Heupel echoed that sentiment from Halzle during his appearance on Vol Calls on Wednesday evening, confirming that Hooker can toss plays out of the playbook.

“I think as an offensive staff, we have a really good understanding of things that he’s (Hooker) comfortable with," explained Heupel. "He’s been exposed to a lot of things. If there’s something new that’s put in, he’s going to tell Coach Halzle, myself, or Coach Golesh really quickly that, ‘Hey man, this isn’t something that I necessarily like.’

“The way that we install before we get onto the practice field, we have a really good understanding and subtly tweak things before we get out early in the week during our preparation, too, before we get into situational football on Wednesdays," added Heupel. "But I think what we’ve installed, the schemes that we’ve run, his ability to use his feet allows us to continue to grow our package and put him in a position where he’s comfortable and feels like he’s going to be able to execute on game day.”

That's a massive difference from the previous coaching staff at UT. The coaches under Jeremy Pruitt were often at odds with each other — something that had a negative impact on the quarterback position.

For example, against Auburn in 2020, Pruitt forced offensive coordinator Jim Chaney to change his play call to a play that quarterback Jarrett Guarantano hadn't practiced. The end result of the play was a 99-yard pick six by Auburn defensive back Smoke Monday.

The Vols have come a long way since those days.

It's easy to see why elite quarterbacks want to play for Heupel and the Vols. Not only is this staff developing quarterbacks at a high level, but they're also preparing them for life after college football by allowing them to be part of building the playbook (this is something the Cincinnati Bengals do with Joe Burrow, a young quarterback they've trusted with a lot of responsibility).

It's little things like letting Hooker toss a play out that separates this staff from many of the other staffs in the SEC. These Vols coaches aren't control freaks, something we couldn't say about some of the past coaching staffs at Tennessee.

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