Tennessee Vols morning report: Schedule change, Florida game sold out
As you might expect, everything surrounding the Tennessee Vols athletics program right now centers around football, and that was never more true than Wednesday. Story after update story heavily with news around that specific program.
Our morning update on Rocky Top leads with another round of weekly press conferences, two that happen every Wednesday, ahead of the football team’s Saturday matchup. We also have news about the uniforms the team will be wearing and ticket sales for next week’s game.
Scheduling updates also made news, as the football schedule has a change for the future, and the baseball schedule made news. Finally, we’ve got a preview of a men’s tennis event beginning today. All the updates were about looking ahead Wednesday, so let’s dive in.
Josh Heupel speaks at SEC Teleconference – SECSports
Ahead of the Tennessee Vols football team’s matchup with the Akron Zips, Josh Heupel took the podium Wednesday at the weekly Southeastern Conference teleconference. Here’s a bit of what he said.
"“The challenge always is for us to continue to improve as we continue to go through this journey during the season. Practice habits have been good this week, and looking forward to a game here inside of Neyland Stadium, and looking forward to competing with our guys this Saturday.”"
Uniforms for Akron revealed – Jack Foster, SI.com
The Tennessee Vols are mixing it up this week against the Akron Zips with their uniform combination. Their wearing the same color jersey and pants.
"The Tennessee Football Twitter team recently took to Twitter to unveil the Week 3 threads.The Vols will sport the orange on orange uniforms with white helmets for their upcoming contest against the Zips in hopes to go 3-0 for the first time since 2016."
Florida game sold out – Ryan Callahan, GoVols247
In addition to the uniform combination for this week, the Tennessee Vols football team revealed on its Twitter account that next week’s matchup with the Florida Gators is sold out. Both teams are expected to be in the top 25 for that game.
"Tennessee’s annual clash with SEC East rival Florida will be the Vols’ second home sellout in less than a year. Tennessee played before a capacity crowd of 102,455 last year during its 31-26 loss to Ole Miss on Oct. 16, which was the Vols’ first home sellout in more than four years."
Football removes Oklahoma from 2024 schedule – Brent Hubbs, VolQuest
Because of the Oklahoma Sooners joining the SEC, Tennessee football has been instructed to remove them from their 2024 schedule. UT was set to host OU that year to complete a home-and-home that should have began at OU in 2020 but was canceled due to COVID.
"The Sooner and Texas are slated to join the SEC in 2025. But that could happen sooner depending on the Big 12’s strategy moving forward with their conference."
Vol Calls features Josh Heupel, Alex Golesh – UTSports
After speaking at the SEC Teleconference Wednesday, Josh Heupel took to Vol Calls. He and Alex Golesh both spoke at the session. Heupel talked about how the win at the Pittsburgh Panthers showed his team’s ability to close games. Here’s a bit of what he said.
"“The ability to just be relentless and compete in a positive way when things aren’t always going your way, that doesn’t just happen overnight. It happens because of your offseason. It happens because your kids start doing things right off the field in every area of their life. It happens because you become connected as a football team – not just as a position group, not just as a unit, but as an entire football team.”"
Golesh praised the offense’s resiliency despite the mistakes that it made. This is how he described that unit at Pitt.
"“That’s the first sign of a mature football team, is the ability to get down and go fight back. We talk a lot about having the next play mentality, and playing the next play, and I really felt like they did.”"
2023 SEC baseball schedule announced – SECSports
On Wednesday, the SEC released its 2023 baseball schedule. The Tennessee Vols begin league play at the Georgia Bulldogs March 17-19. Other road series are the LSU Tigers, South Carolina Gamecocks, Missouri Tigers and Auburn Tigers. At home, they face the Florida Gators, Vanderbilt Commodores, Kentucky Wildcats, Texas A&M Aggies and Mississippi State Bulldogs.
"The 2023 SEC baseball season will be comprised of four weeks of non-conference play followed by 10 weeks of conference series. The first weekend of SEC series is March 17-19, and the regular season concludes May 18-20."
Men’s tennis set for Knoxville Showdown – UTSports
Coming off the Orlando Fall Shootout to open its fall schedule last week, the Tennessee Vols men’s tennis team is back home for the Knoxville Showdown this weekend. Tournament play begins Thursday at noon for UT against Columbia.
"The event is set to run Thursday-Sunday, Sept. 15-18.The Vols will serve host to Columbia, Illinois, MTSU and North Carolina in the Vols’ second tournament of the fall slate."