{"id":266300,"date":"2025-11-02T05:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T05:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/266300\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T05:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T05:08:08","slug":"what-josh-heupel-said-after-tennessees-33-27-loss-to-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/266300\/","title":{"rendered":"What Josh Heupel said after Tennessee’s 33-27 loss to Oklahoma"},"content":{"rendered":"

What head coach\u00a0Josh Heupel<\/a>\u00a0said during his postgame press conference<\/a> Saturday night after No. 14\u00a0Tennessee\u2019s<\/a>\u00a033-27 loss No. 17\u00a0Oklahoma<\/a> on Saturday night at Neyland Stadium:<\/p>\n

Opening Statement<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously extremely disappointed with the outcome. Everybody in program is extremely disappointed. Fans were awesome tonight, as always, I want to thank them. First half, thought defensively we played extremely well. Offensively, move the football, don\u2019t get points in the red zone, turn the ball over, give them 16 points in the first half and just can\u2019t win that way. They\u2019re a good football team. And then at the end just didn\u2019t have enough to do over the hump. So give credit to them. We got to play smarter to win a game like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the Oklahoma defense did something to make Tennessee\u2019s offense play out of character<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, really didn\u2019t handle it well enough. The turnovers, uncharacteristic. And they turned them into points. And that\u2019s a double whammy right there. Give credit to them. There\u2019s some things that we did really well. I didn\u2019t think we operated a couple of possessions in the red zone the way we need to. And then the turnover. You give him 16 points in the first half. And kicker did a really nice job. It was three long ones. Just didn\u2019t execute (on offense).\u201d<\/p>\n

What he saw on Joey Aguilar\u2019s two interceptions in the first half<\/p>\n

\u201cOne is just off his back foot. Another one, doesn\u2019t see rotation, hangs it up for the safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Tennessee couldn\u2019t run the football against Oklahoma\u2019s defense<\/p>\n

\u201cOne, they\u2019re good up front against the run. Two, there\u2019s some times where we had some runs and we\u2019re throwing perimeter tags when we shouldn\u2019t. So combination of all those things. And then late the game plays out the way it does.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

How different Oklahoma\u2019s looks were pre-snap on defense<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of it was different. Some of the pressures were a little bit different. All in all, adjusted to some of that. We got beat a couple of times, which is going to happen. Early I thought Joey did a good job getting to some check downs too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If he will have big-picture conversations with Tennessee after suffering a third loss<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Ultimately, we\u2019re not in control of any of those things. We\u2019re in control of what we do. Disappointed. Thought they prepared extremely hard. There\u2019s some things that were really good defensively early tonight. I thought they played really good football. Got a choice to make. Life,\u00a0how you going to respond? This group has competed, continued to try to get better every day. Expect and demand that as we get going here on the back end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fourth-and-1 incomplete pass to Jack Van Dorselaer<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, long yard right there. They\u2019ve been good in those situations and had something that we thought, as multiple as they are in that situation, that would give us a chance. And he gets hung up a little bit coming around the edge. I haven\u2019t watched the video of that specific play yet. Whatever, we got to squeeze it a little bit and let him get his head around. We just got to make a play. I can\u2019t tell you right now, but we had a chance there.\u201d<\/p>\n

What went wrong to have to take a timeout before that play<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just behind in the sequence of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defending Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer in the run game<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly, I thought we did a good job. As the game went on, he made some plays with his feet. Out of gaps a couple times and sometimes he made just a good play. Third and 16, we let him escape and pick up a critical first round.\u201d<\/p>\n

His assessment of his defense, especially in the first quarter<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought early played well, first half. Tough when you give up 16 and play really well defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conversations with Tennessee kicker Max Gilbert<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, you got to go out there and drain it. Misses one early and comes back and hits one. That\u2019s part of the difference in the game too. All that. All the little things. Play good competition, which they are. That\u2019s what\u2019s in this league. It comes down to making those plays.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What head coach\u00a0Josh Heupel\u00a0said during his postgame press conference Saturday night after No. 14\u00a0Tennessee\u2019s\u00a033-27 loss No. 17\u00a0Oklahoma on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,4504,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-266300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-regwall","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}