October 2, 2021: The Day We Knew The Heupel Era Was Different
Credit: University of Tennessee Athletics
By Tucker Harlin
Three years ago today, I was out of town for fall break during my sophomore year at UT.
Tennessee football was out of town too but for a trip to play Missouri in Columbia. I remember telling my friends I had no idea what was going to happen at Faurot Field based on everything that had transpired in the first month of the season.
As every Tennessee fan reading this knows, the decade leading up to October 2, 2021 was a turbulent one for the football program.
The program’s ceiling between the end of the Fulmer era and the start of Josh Heupel’s tenure in Knoxville was a pair of 9-4 seasons under Butch Jones.
Jones was of course fired for going 4-8 and winless in conference in 2017, which in turn led to one giant administrative dumpster fire at the university.
Fulmer was rehired to quell the angry fan base, and he then hired Jeremy Pruitt as the next head coach.
There was nothing fun about Pruitt’s three seasons on the job.
The Vols peaked at 8-5 in 2019, but that season was marred by a loss to Georgia State on the opening weekend. The bottom fell out in 2020 on Pruitt, and a subsequent NCAA investigation led to Pruitt’s firing and Fulmer’s resignation as athletics director.
Donde Plowman hired UCF athletics director Danny White, who subsequently brought his coach to the football program in Josh Heupel.
The first month of 2021 was an iffy 2-2 for Tennessee.
The Vols blew out Bowling Green 38-6 on a Thursday night in opening week, but quarterback play was suspect from Joe Milton. They dropped their first loss in a 41-34 shootout against Pittsburgh, a game in which Milton left with an injury and Hendon Hooker to claw back from behind.
Tennessee shutout Tennessee Tech like it was supposed to, but it lost 38-14 to Florida the next week. Don’t get it twisted, the Vols defense was atrocious in the swamp, but the offense was a couple of dropped passes away from keeping the game competitive.
Then came the trip to Missouri. Tennessee had beaten the Tigers in each of the last two seasons, but Eli Drinkwitz was well set in his second year on the job
Missouri had shown signs of life during the COVID seasons and the possibility to take a step forward from a .500 season in 2020. The Tigers were 2.5 point favorites going into the contest.
But something unexpected and incredible happened that day.
HIGHLIGHTS:
On this day in Tennessee football history:
— Tucker Harlin (@TuckerHarlin) October 2, 2024
Josh Heupel, Hendon Hooker, and the #Vols offense announced their presence to the SEC with this 62-24 rout of Missouri in 2021. pic.twitter.com/JjBz9qMnIl
I thought I was dreaming the entirety of this game.
Tennessee, the same program whose quarterback was terrified of the red zone each of the past two seasons, was suddenly capable of scoring 45 points in a half against a conference opponent?
Butch Jones scored 63 against Missouri back in 2016, but that game was competitive for three quarters. Tennessee had a 28-3 lead on Missouri after one quarter in the 62-24 win the Vols earned in 2021.
No victory for Tennessee in the three prior coaching tenures was done with this amount ease and finesse against an SEC school.
Hooker, part of the group that stayed in Knoxville after Pruitt’s firing, had committed to Pruitt’s staff out of the portal from Virginia Tech. Every pass Hooker threw in his 15/19 for 225 yards and three touchdowns performance was a pretty one.
Tennessee also ran for 458 yards in this game. That was enough for Drinkwitz to fire his defensive line coach the very next day.
This game found a long lost excitement for football among Tennessee fans, something that was lacking over the last decade. That same excitement still exists as the Vols enter October 2024.
