Tenne see will open its 2022 season Thursday night against Ball State. On Monday afternoon, Head Coach Josh Heupel met with the local media to discu s preparation and more. The full transcript of what he said is below (courtesy of UTAD Athletics Communications Department)"Feels different in here today than it ever has. Some might think it's game week, but we are all graced by a Hall of Famer, Jimmy (Hyams), congratulations. Congratulations on everything you've done in this area covering UT for a long time but the area as well, so congratulations for everything that you've done. "Awesome that it's game week man, let's go play ball. Excited to get into Neyland Stadium. Obviously, a long training camp here with our players. We're at the point where it is time to go play and find out where we're at. We are in the middle of our preparation right now. Today was a Wednesday (practice week wise). Energy, focus (were) good. Things we still got to clean up here before we get to kickoff, but excited to go compete with these guys on Thursday night. Really Alexander Edler Jersey excited to see Vol Nation out. Our student body, there has been a huge amount of ticket requests by them. Excited to feel their energy inside of Neyland Stadium (and) the Vol Walk. I know our guys are extremely excited about that, too. You look back at the proce s all the way since Jan. 24 I think that is when we got here and a ton of work has gone into it. Excited to go play and compete with these guys and our fans that are in the stands, as well. Thursday night ballgame, one benefit for us as a staff is we have the opportunity to go recruit on the backend of it. At lot of our staff will be out on Friday and have the chance to go watch some high school kids play football in the state and acro s our region, (so) excited about that as well." "Certainly, a small sense of relief. More than anything just excitement when I got the news. Man, it sent chills down my spine. I'm so excited for him. A young man that has done it the right way since he has been here, and he has gone through a long, windy journey to get to this point. Now he has the opportunity to move forward with his future and go compete with his teammates, his brothers. Having the chance to tell him and hear him tell his dad was one of the great moments in my career. You can just tell the sense of Jay Beagle Men Jersey excitement and some relief from them that they are just able to move on and go compete. Really special for him and his family." "I think as a coach you're always, 'man we've got to go play'. At the same time, you always want more time to continue the preparation. You've got a checklist: offense, defense, special teams, special situations/circumstances that you try to put your kids in. We've run the gamut on that. We've gotten into our normal down, situational preparation for this football game. There's still a lot of things here in the next 72 hours that we get a chance to clean up. At the end of the day, you get to this point through the course of training camp, it it's time to go play ball." "The beginning portion of practice we were kind of methodical in ramping him up as he came off of not being quite 100 percent at the beginning of summer. So, we have built him up. He has got a good understanding of what we're doing. He's operated fairly efficiently in what we are doing offensively. For all of our guys that are out there playing on the offensive side of the ball with our tempo the first time you think back to a year ago, it'll be their first time experiencing it so, there will be some things that we are going to have to Alexander Edler Women Jersey grow through and clean up. He has got a really good understanding of what we're doing. He has continued to get stronger physically, been more fundamentally and technically sound in what we're asking him to do. There's a lot of positive things as we have gone through this training camp with him." "In some ways, just like our program, much further ahead. They understand how we play, the ability to communicate. You guys saw that growth with them a year ago. We're healthy at this point in the season, which is exciting. We need to stay that way. A lot of guys have played a lot of football there for us." "In what we do, Hendon (Hooker) is going to get the majority or all the one work. Joe (Milton III), at times, will get a majority of the two reps. We have a plan for all of our twos. Offensive line, skill guys, tight ends to get a good amount of reps. That's when we're going against practice squads, that's also when we're going against some good-on-good looks." "Week one, just in general, you're never sure exactly what you're going to get. Some of that can be personnel based. They have guys that graduate, new guys come in, where are they going to place them? Schematically, things tend to change in week one. Everyone went through a self-scout proce s from the previous year, they made changes to what they're doing. Things really big in week one that your players have an understanding in what you anticipate to see, but they have the tools in their tool bag to adjust to what they're actually seeing. Staff and everybody being able to adjust and subtlety tweak and change things as the game unfolds." "A big part of that last year was being in year one. New in what we're doing offensively. Velus (Jones Jr.) being nicked up during the course of training camp kind of changed the way the season started for us. Some guys Erik Gudbranson Jersey coming on strong. That's the inventible beginning of a season. Some of those things will happen as this season unfolds too, but in particular in year one. We'd like to play more guys at the wide receiver position, guys that are ready to compete and perform in the way that we need him to. Be in the right spaces in the right time and have a trust with the quarterback. I do feel like we'll play more guys than we did a year ago at this juncture of the season." "I think at this point we're pretty healthy heading into week one. You guys know there's still a long time before we actually kick off. Unle s it's a major injury where guys won't be available, I tend to not make a decision on Wednesday afternoon and wait just a little bit longer. "The left tackle position, both of those guys are Markus Naslund Women Jersey going to play. Somebody will run out with the ones. I haven't watched Wednesday's practice yet, Coach (Glen) Elarbee hasn't. As we go back and evaluate it, we'll have a plan for those guys to rotate during the course of the ball game. What percentage each of them play and who runs out there first, I don't have an answer to yet." "You can see it as we transition from how we practice during training camp to the season. Just the comfort with our players and what we're doing. That's true for our coaches, too. We're in sync. The ability to communicate. Our players have a clear vision of what's going to happen here up until kickoff. The standards that we have. Year two should be a l