Josh Heupel remains positive concerning Joe Milton III: 'He was in the right spots'
Josh Heupel met with media Monday afternoon for his weekly press conference. And the Vols’ head coach wasn’t as upbeat as he has been through the first 2 weeks of the year.
Obviously, it isn’t hard to see why.
Things have gotten progressively worse for Tennessee since beating Clemson in the Orange Bowl last season. The Vols opened the season with a good win over Virginia and followed it up with a less-than-ideal win over Austin Peay in Week 2. Fans could only watch as the wheels very nearly fell off in a loss to Florida in Week 3.
Nearly. Tennessee’s season is far from over, but as Heupel told reporters Saturday, things have to start changing quickly.
Heupel discussed a myriad of things that have to get better Monday afternoon, and while he didn’t call starting QB Joe Milton’s outing against Florida perfect by any means, he implied that the 6th year-senior was far from the main problem Saturday against the Gators.
In fact, Heupel insisted Milton was in the right spots and that his decision-making was where it needs to be, though admitting he needs to clean up some accuracy issues. Here’s his full quote on Milton and the offensive woes:
“He did some really good things the other night,” Heupel said. “The pick, we can’t just throw it up. We’d like to have that one back. Gotta be better in protection, too in that situation. The decision-making, where he’s going with the football, I said it before the game I’ll say it after the game, he was in the right spots. Accuracy, wide receivers being exact in their routes, all of those things gotta to improve for us to be as efficient as we need to be.”
Heupel starts speaking on Milton around the 8-minute mark of the video below:
Tennessee returns home for a bit of a breather this coming Saturday against UTSA, which has struggled more than anticipated to start the season. The Vols’ response will say a lot about the current state of the program after an ugly loss to an SEC East rival.
The game is set to kick at 4 p.m. in Knoxville on SEC Network.
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Milton was not the reason we lost. In fact if you throw out a very bad decision on the pick he was pretty good. Not great but pretty good. Had one bad overthrow but also some very nice long throws.
We lost at the LOS on both sides. too much swamp gas (noise, and flo energy) got to em.
Once again I am very interested to see if this staff can get them re-energized after a deflating game like that.
But Milton does not lose in Florida right ?
Only Joe Milton thinks Joe Milton doesn’t lose in Florida. What he should have said was he doesn’t lose to teams other than the gators in Florida.
Great game on both sides of the ball Gators. TN was not prepared and got caught. Swamp is still a top 3 hardest place to play at night IMO.
All
Jokes aside 88
Tennessee nor Florida was or is going to win the sec this year . We needed this to hopefully get to the 7 to 8 win total and show some growth. You guys can win 9 to 10 games as well and make a good bowl trip. Best of luck to you guys the rest of the way
Same for you guys going forward. Honestly, from what I’ve seen, the entire SEC is wide open right now. Right place on the right night, anything could happen. We shall see. I think we both could pull out 10 wins this season and still wind up 2nd and 3rd in the East.
He’s a clown…. Maybe he makes a quick turnaround for the season but until then… he’s a clown.
Says a guy who bashes a kid who’s trying his best against some of the best players in the nation.
Bashing kids for their efforts on the field is classless. Please find another team to pull for… clown.
There’s no award for effort. Especially when you’re talking sh ! t and can’t back it up. I hope he proves me wrong, I really do. It’s not like I want him to do bad at all.
Just go away clown.
I’m not going anywhere. Take your orange gear and go celebrate with the champions of life squad because that’s where you belong.
He’s getting paid so…. Not like it was 10 years ago. He gets paid. I get to criticize
247 u r a complete idiot if u blame joe for the loss.
I’m not blaming him solely for the loss but he didn’t play good. The O-line and defense is to blame too. I’m not gonna explain myself though. Don’t come crying to me if joe is benched later on in the season.
He doesn’t get the blame—no quarterback should unless he’s directly responsible for throwing a pick six to end the game or the like—HOWEVER…
I’m still astonished that Huepel is so high on him…he looks like a statue and seems to have a lot of insecurity in his play. (Hesitates a lot and is late or inaccurate on many throws.)
The horrible tackling, blocking and PLAY CALLING are what really killed us.
I’ll be shocked if Milton is still playing with the first team in another two weeks.
Nico must just not be anywhere near ready to play: they would have probably put him in the second half just to see if his scrambling ability would have helped against the Florida defense.
I believe if they wrap up Etienne and drag him down on that 50+ yard TD run, the game would have came down to the wire. Florida exploded after that happened. But no. They give him a slight shoulder nudge and expect him to topple over.
How many bubble screens do you have to call before you realize that ain’t gonna get the job done? Apparently, TN never reached that number.
Milton is like JG in some ways. Crazy amount of talent but can’t put it all together to make it work.
Nico! Nico! Nico! Joe is done
I called it
SEC123…I posted last year that the Vols would call on Nico by the 4th or 5th game. Let’s see what happens. Joe is what he is, no more and no less.
At least he’s not as bad as Tyler, Jalen or Tommy
sure he is. Jalen is better BTW. Not a terribly high bar, but it is what it is.