🏈 The Vols are confident

Why the Vols were loose at SEC Media Days

Josh Ward
July 19, 2024

Hello. This is the Josh and Swain Newsletter, a quick roundup of the week’s top stories and topics involving Tennessee and the sports world.

Here’s what we have for you today:

Why Josh Heupel is confident in his 2024 Tennessee Football team
The Nico Buzz is getting louder after SEC Media Days
How much talent does Tennessee have entering the 2024 season?
Are the Texas Longhorns ready for the SEC gauntlet?

TENNESSEE’S BIG TALK

Josh Heupel is always confident.

That makes sense considering his success as a national championship winning quarterback and one of the best offensive coaches in the country.

But it’s one thing for Heupel to be confident in himself.

What about his team?

Well, the Heupel we saw this week at SEC Media Days in Dallas seemed quite confident in the team he’ll coach this fall.

Here’s what Heupel told us on the show:

“We’ve got without a doubt the best, the deepest roster that we’ve had. … We’re at the best point that we’ve been — not even close.”

Not even close. That part stood out.

We’ve spent a lot of time this offseason talking about Tennessee’s defensive line.

That group has elite talent (James Pearce Jr.) and legitimate depth.

That’s why Omari Thomas was happy to hear defensive coordinator Tim Banks say in the spring that Tennessee should have the nation’s best defensive line.

The Vols believe in themselves.

Ryan McGee of ESPN said during Thursday’s show that you can tell if a coach really believes in what he’s saying about his team.

And with Heupel, it seems real.

A lot of the media in Dallas thought so, too.

No one we spoke to questioned whether Tennessee is a contender for the playoff this season.

There are differing opinions whether the Vols will make the playoff.

But Tennessee is in a group that includes Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU — teams with a real shot at making it.

Tennessee’s showing in Dallas probably helped.

Like when linebacker Keenan Pili said this:

“Seeing how much talent and the type of guys that we have on this team, we can actually go win it and compete for those championships we’re talking about.”

To be clear: no one in the media that we spoke to picked Tennessee to win the SEC.

That conversation was mostly reserved for Georgia, Texas and Alabama. (Official predictions will come out on Friday.)

But the conversation at this year’s media days event was different because of the expanded playoff.

More teams have added incentive.

And if Tennessee makes the playoff this year, these three things will have likely happened:

1️⃣ Nico Iamaleava will have lived up to the hype

Iamaleava wasn’t in Dallas, but he was a popular topic.

His talent combined with Heupel’s offense has a lot of people excited.

And not just in Knoxville.

2️⃣ Tennessee’s line of scrimmage

The Vols’ defensive line has earned a lot of respect.

And the SEC is a line of scrimmage league.

If the D-line plays at a high level all season and the offensive line stays healthy, Tennessee should be able to compete in every game.

3️⃣ Tennessee will have taken advantage of its schedule

Nobody thinks the Vols’ schedule is easy.

But it does contain a few breaks.

UT’s hardest stretch of consecutive games appears to be:
• Oct. 5 at Arkansas (away)
• Oct. 12 Florida (home)
• Oct. 19 Alabama (home)

NO ONE should write off the Florida game — but getting that one at home in October is an advantage for UT.

Alabama will be tough (Duh).

But there’s no other stretch on Tennessee’s schedule that looks too taxing.

If Tennessee can go 4-0 in September — not easy, but doable — the belief in the Vols will be validated.

We talked to Heupel about the confidence he has in his team and the growth he’s seen in Iamaleava (more on that in a moment) live at SEC Media Days. Watch the conversation below or listen anywhere you get your podcasts.

EVERYONE’S READY FOR NICO

Nico’s coming. And everyone wants to see it

As mentioned above, there was a lot of talk this week about Iamaleava.

Heupel praised his young quarterback for the way he’s carried himself amidst all the attention.

“From the time he got on campus, he’s been a great teammate. He’s wanted to earn the respect of his teammates from who he is every day and how he communicates with them and how he works.”

Center Cooper Mays agreed with that notion when he met with the media on Tuesday.

“He’s a great leader because of how he acts,” Mays said.

Late Kick host Josh Pate joined us on Wednesday and described the positive things he’s heard from UT folks about Nico.

It’s not the physical traits that have people raving — it’s everything else.

Josh Pate:

“The physical ability of Nico was almost an afterthought. That’s the box that’s checked already. No on questions that around there. It was the intangible stuff. The stuff that is the difference between winning eight and 10 games. That stuff, they strongly believe in with him — which is rare because he’s not been a full time starter yet in this league. There’s a lot of baptism by fire that has to happen. No easy way around that; you just have to go through it.”

So is he ready for the fire?

We’ll get an idea early when he plays two games away from home in September: against North Carolina State in Charlotte in Week 2 and at Oklahoma in Week 4.

Those teams will try to force Iamaleava into making mistakes.

It’s not all on Iamaleava, of course.

His offensive line will need to protect him and his pass catchers will need to make plays.

Those things didn’t happen often enough last season.

The quarterback position is deep in the SEC.

Carson Beck, Jaxson Dart, Jalen Milroe and Quinn Ewers lead the way.

First-year starters like Iamaleava, Jackson Arnold at Oklahoma, and Garrett Nussmeier at LSU will look to prove they’re at the same level.

With Nico, no one questions his talent.

Everyone just wants to see what he’ll do with it.

Check out our full conversation with Josh Pate, who discussed Tennessee’s playoff hopes and how the expanded 12-team playoff might impact how we view big regular season games.

SPORTS NUGGETS

🏈 How many SEC teams can make the 12-team College Football Playoff this year? Jesse Simonton wrote about that topic this week.

🏈 Will the playoff field expand beyond 12 teams? That conversation will wait until 2025.

🏈ESPN ranked the best stadiums in college football. See if you agree (or disagree) with Neyland Stadium’s ranking.

🏈 Neither the SEC nor the Big Ten look like the landing spot for Florida State if it leaves the ACC.

🏀 How did Tennessee fare in the transfer portal this offseason? Here’s a look at ESPN’s top 100 ranking.

🏆 ESPN ranked the top 100 pro athletes since 2000, a list that features multiple UT athletes.

⚾ Great story from Mike Wilson of Knox News on Todd Helton ahead of his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

🎧 Atlanta linebacker Christian Gass will announce his college choice on Saturday and Tennessee feels pretty, pretty good. Catch up on Gass and Tennessee’s top recruiting targets in our interview with Austin Price of Volquest. (Audio option below)

CHECKING IN ON TENNESSEE’S TALENT

DL Omarr Norman-Lott’s return was a big boost for the Vols’ defense

So how much talent does Tennessee have to work with this season?

On paper, not as much as Georgia, Texas or Alabama.

But Tennessee can make a strong case against most other teams in the SEC.

Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy joined us in Dallas to discuss the Vols’ roster.

James Pearce is a top-tier talent; everyone wants to see what he does this season, Nagy included.

Nagy said the Senior Bowl currently has a draftable grade on eight Tennessee players.

That’s among players eligible for the 2025 draft.

Nagy said he’s excited about Tennessee defensive lineman Omarr Norman-Lott, a player who could have been drafted this past spring.

Instead, Norman-Lott is back to bolster the defensive line.

Tennessee has several players the Senior Bowl was interested in a year ago before they returned to school.

Nagy said they would have invited wide receiver Bru McCoy if not for his injury last year.

Mays was on the Senior Bowl radar a year ago, as were fellow offensive linemen John Campbell Jr. and Javontez Spraggins.

Their return is an obvious boost for Tennessee.

One other player stood out in our conversation with Nagy: transfer receiver Chris Brazzell.

Nagy saw Brazzell in person at Tulane last season — and the Vols’ newcomer impressed.

Nagy on Brazzell:

“I was at like three (Tulane) games last season. We had their quarterback Michael Pratt in our game. We had one of their receivers, Jha’Quan Jackson, who the Titans picked. And Brazzell lit it up in a couple of games I was at so that was a good add for (Tennessee). I’ll be really curious to see what it looks like now on an SEC football field.”

Tennessee’s receiver group still has a question mark next to it.

The potential is there, but the group needs to produce on the field.

Brazzell could help with that.

Watch our full conversation with Jim Nagy below — or listen anywhere you get your podcasts.

MEDIA DAYS NOTES

Is Texas ready for the SEC… or is the SEC ready for Texas?

Here are a few other thoughts from conversations in Dallas this week.

➡️ The Oklahoma game will be huge

Storylines aside, Tennessee’s game at Oklahoma will be critical for both teams’ playoff hopes.

A loss in Norman wouldn’t kill Tennessee’s playoff chances, but the margin for error would become razor thin.

For Oklahoma, a loss to Tennessee to open SEC play would be a huge blow.

The Sooners will need that game badly — and Tennessee knows it.

➡️ Can a 9-3 team make the playoff?

That’s a common question that no one knows the answer to right now.

For Tennessee, my answer has been the Vols should count on needing a 10-2 record.

We asked Jesse Simonton on our show what he thought.

“I think it depends on your schedule. I think a Texas, a Georgia, an Alabama — they can probably get in with a 9-3 depending on if it’s the right 9-3. Tennessee might be in that category because of NC State. … I think that’s going to be a game because NC State has, in my opinion, legitimate dark horse ACC potential.”

So maybe Tennessee can go 9-3 and make the playoff.

Shooting for 10-2 or better still seems like a good idea.

Also worth noting: the SEC will fight for as many playoff spots as it can get every year.

Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said he thinks we’ll see “something similar to the College World Series with (the number of SEC) teams in the College Football Playoff.”

➡️ Texas isn’t afraid

Texas enters the league with a lot of outside skeptics.

Can the Longhorns handle the week-to-week grind of the SEC?

We’ll soon find out — but Texas carried itself like it belongs.

Winning at Alabama last season and making the playoff probably helps their confidence.

They also have a head coach who knows what it takes to win in the SEC.

Steve Sarkisian knows it’s hard to win in this league, even with a ton of talent.

Expect the media vote — which took place in Dallas and comes out on Friday — to show confidence in the Longhorns.

➡️ How good will Florida be?

The Gators have a brutal schedule this season.

Head coach Billy Napier and his players have done their best to embrace it.

So what would be a good record for Florida, which has to play Miami, UCF and Florida State as nonconference opponents?

7-5?

Florida’s over/under win total is 4.5, according to the sportsbooks. (Woof.)

The Gators still have talent.

Enough to overcome that schedule?

Probably not.

But Tennessee will need to make sure it’s ready when UF comes to Knoxville on Oct. 12.

THE REAL UT?

We’ll finish with a fun question from SEC Media Days: Which team is the real UT, Tennessee or Texas?

Readers of this newsletter will probably share the same opinion.

If you find yourself in an argument with a Texas fan, maybe use Cooper Mays’ tactic.

“I just said facts that made it very known who the real UT was,” Mays said.

Watch what he had to say below.

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