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What Josh Heupel said after Tennessee’s Music City Bowl loss to Purdue
By SDS Staff
Published:
Josh Heupel’s first season as Tennessee ends with a disappointing loss. The Volunteers fell to Purdue 48-45 in overtime of the Music City Bowl. The officials’ ruling that forward progress was stopped before Jaylen Wright extended the ball over the plane of the goal line. With Wright ruled short, it was a turnover on downs and Purdue was able to win with a field goal.
After the game, Heupel discussed UT’s final offensive play and more. Heupel relayed that the forward progress explanation is what he heard from the officials. The head coach discussed other parts of Thursday night’s game and reflected on his first season on Rocky Top, thanking Vols fans and players who bought in. Perhaps most interesting was Heupel revealing that officials admitted there needs to be a rule change on injury stoppages, an issue Tennessee has dealt with throughout the year.
Here are the highlights shared by media members on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KellyanneStitts/status/1476722486268112913
Josh Heupel: "Right on the edge there. Coach Ekeler believed in it. Chase did too. He wanted to go and drain it."
on FG attempt
— Eric Cain (@_Cainer) December 31, 2021
Josh Heupel says the refs came up to him saying there needs to be some kind of rule change regarding injured players when they flop.
— Dan Harralson (@danharralson) December 31, 2021
Josh Heupel: [Purdue] executed well and made some contested catches throughout the football game."
— Eric Cain (@_Cainer) December 31, 2021
Heupel emotional speaking about his team: “I love these guys man. They fight, they scrap, they compete… We came up one play short.”
— Karthik Venkataraman (@KarthikV_) December 31, 2021
Heupel: There are some things that we handled really well tonight, and there are some things that we didn’t.
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) December 31, 2021
Josh Heupel: "I'm disappointed in the outcome, not the preparation."
— Eric Cain (@_Cainer) December 31, 2021
Josh Heupel on Chase McGrath's game-winning field goal attempt: Chase gave it a hell of a ride. Disappointed we couldn't get the ball closer for him and that's on me.
— Ben McKee (@benmckee14) December 31, 2021
Josh Heupel: "The passion of our fanbase, they are on fire man."
— Eric Cain (@_Cainer) December 31, 2021
Heupel on why Jaylen Wright played in OT instead of Jabari Small: Small was fighting through some things really all night long.
— GoVols247 (@GoVols247) December 31, 2021
Josh Heupel: "I didn't feel like in the second quarter that we executed things very well."
— Eric Cain (@_Cainer) December 31, 2021
Heupel: “The passion of our fan base, it’s not surpassed anywhere in college football.” The scene, driving up with the buses, was as good as anything I’ve ever seen.
— GoVols247 (@GoVols247) December 31, 2021
Josh Heupel says the players left it all out there. Gave it everything they had.
— Eric Cain (@_Cainer) December 31, 2021
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
