Welcome to the Playoff party, Tennessee. Been a long time coming, but it’s good to finally see you again.
Your arrival gift? A date with Alabama.
“Everybody knows who’s coming to town next weekend, and the opportunity we have in front of us,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel told reporters.
Now everyone knows Tennessee, too.
This is what happens when you’ve entered the national championship race, when you’ve put everyone in the big, bad SEC on notice with another impressive win — this time, a 40-13 humiliation of LSU in Baton Rouge.
Every game is big, no matter the opponent.
Two weeks ago, Florida was the biggest game in Neyland Stadium in 2 decades. Now Alabama will be the biggest.
This, everyone, is the byproduct of building a successful program. Games are no longer measured as the greatest since.
They’re just big games and the next game in line on the road to the Playoff. Not too high, not too low.
Heupel has made that clear since he stepped on campus last year and had to deal with more 30 players leaving for the transfer portal — including double-digit starters or potential starters.
It’s not about everyone else, it’s about Tennessee. It’s not about a losing streak, or a nemesis, or another coach or player, or 30-plus guys who don’t want in. Those are all excuses.
It’s about preparation and physical and mental toughness. And if you have an elite quarterback — the Vols have Heisman Trophy candidate Hendon Hooker — change arrives quicker than you think.
“We’ve found a way to be the best team on the field 5 times,” Heupel said. “That’s what we’ve done.”
Would you have expected anything different?
So while the rest of the college football world will talk all next week about how Tennessee hasn’t beaten bitter rival Alabama since Nick Saban arrived (that’s 15 consecutive losses), Heupel and his staff will focus on Tennessee being the best team on the field, on that day.
More to the point: How the Vols can stress the elite Alabama defense with Heupel’s Blur Ball offense and expose relative weaknesses.
Because that’s where next week’s game will be won and lost. That’s where Tennessee’s now undisputedly real Playoff hopes have been fed and developed.
Tennessee has scored at least 40 points 10 times in Heupel’s 18 career games. The Vols had more than 500 total yards of offense again Saturday against LSU, and for the 12th time in 18 games, rushed for more than 200 yards.
Hooker has thrown 2 TD passes in each game this season, and hasn’t thrown an interception. He has 13 total TDs, and in the age of quarterback means everything, has been nearly flawless since a 28-point loss to Alabama last season.
In 10 games since the loss to the Tide, Hooker has 28 TDs (4 rushing) and 1 INT, and is running Heupel’s offense better than any quarterback has. Better than Dillon Gabriel at UCF, and Drew Lock’s record-breaking season at Missouri.
Maybe even better than what Sam Bradford did at Oklahoma in 2008 — 50 TDs and 8 INTs — when he won the Heisman and led the Sooners to the BCS National Championship Game.
Hooker threw for 588 yards and 4TDs against Florida and LSU — without preseason All-American WR Cedric Tillman, who could be available for Alabama.
“We prepare the proper way and continue to do what we do on a daily basis,” Hooker said. “We’re doing what we’re supposed to do.”
That’s a symphony to Heupel’s ears with Alabama rolling into Knoxville next week. This game hasn’t meant anything since 2006, when both teams were ranked in the top 10 and Alabama won by 39. Thirty-freaking-nine.
Six Tennessee coaches — including Heupel — have lost to Saban since, and only 2 games weren’t double-digit beatdowns. Frankly, they’ve been emasculations, cigar smoke billowing from the winning Alabama locker room for 15 straight years.
Just how lopsided has the Third Saturday In October been? Saban lost to Louisiana-Monroe in 2007 — and beat Tennessee by 24.
But this Tennessee team is different, and it has been since Heupel arrived last year and told his offense they will be in the best shape of their lives running his offense — and they’ll never have more fun playing football.
“I’ll never forget that day,” Hooker told me this summer. “This game is fun. Sometimes we forget that.”
It’s fun again in Tennessee.
Welcome to the Playoff party, Vols.
Matt Hayes is a national college football writer for Saturday Down South. You can hear him daily from 12-3 p.m. on 1010XL in Jacksonville. Follow on Twitter @MattHayesCFB
