Tennessee Volunteers coach Josh Heupel understands this season has a lot of variance. He saw a lot of key contributors from last year’s team leave for various reasons and now has one of the younger rosters in the Southeastern Conference.
Entering his fifth season as the coach of the Tennessee Volunteers, it is going to be an intriguing year after making the College Football Playoff. Let’s take a deeper dive into what he said about the young roster the program has going into the season.
Josh Heupel Discusses Tennessee’s Inexperience
While speaking about this year’s Tennessee Volunteers team during the 2025 SEC Media Days on Tuesday, coach Josh Heupel explained how the inexperience on the roster needs to be figured out quickly.
“Now, our young guys, and this has been something we’ve talked about a lot inside of our program. Our young guys don’t have time to be young. You can look at the schedule that we play early. You can look at being inside of this league. Our young guys have got to grow early.
“That’s been something that’s been talked about for me, applying pressure to our staff to get them ready. But, in particular, the leadership inside of our position rooms and make sure they understand the standard and getting those guys ready to play at a championship level.”
The program has seen a significant amount of changes a quarterback Nico Iamaleava, running back Dylan Sampson, wide receiver Bru McCoy, and defensive end James Pearce headlining the departures from last season’s team.
Josh Heupel is not kidding as the Vols open the season against the Syracuse Orange and begin the team’s SEC schedule with a matchup inside Neyland Stadium against the Georgia Bulldogs. In addition, they also play on the road against Alabama, at Florida, and host Oklahoma during the regular season. It will be interesting to see how Tennessee looks in the 2025 season.
