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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee players at SEC media days on Thursday weren’t shy about voicing their goal for the 2023 season, a year removed from the Vols winning 11 games for the first time in more than two decades.
That goal: Win the SEC’s Eastern Division, which would mean unseating two-time defending national champion Georgia.
“That first year, we hoped to win. Now, we expect to win … every game,” senior defensive tackle Omari Thomas said. “There’s a difference.
“Everybody on this team will tell you that we expect to win the East.”
That requires going through the Dawgs, who visit Knoxville on Nov. 18, the next-to-last week of the regular season.
Last season, Tennessee lost to Georgia, 27-13, in Athens. It was a raucous environment, and as rain started to fall in the second half, the Vols wilted amid the weather and the noise. They didn’t have an answer for a Georgia team that was more physical and ready for the big stage.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said his team learned a hard lesson from that game.
“Sometimes you’re not ready for that moment,” Heupel said. “You think you are, but you’re not. It’s not the big things, but the little things and how to control your emotions, all those things. You’ve got to learn from it and be better for it.”
The momentum in and around Tennessee’s program — and expectations, too — haven’t spiraled to this level in more than 20 years, about the same time Heupel was playing quarterback at Oklahoma.
A major part of those expectations surrounds rocket-armed quarterback Joe Milton III, who replaces Hendon Hooker and has seen his stock soar this offseason with his performance at the Manning Passing Academy and NFL scouts suggesting he could be an early NFL first-round pick.
Milton, entering his fifth season of college football after starting his career at Michigan, isn’t backing down from any of it — be it unseating Georgia or taking down Alabama and Florida for a second straight season.
And while Milton realizes the Vols aren’t going to sneak up on anybody this season and will undoubtedly be circled on more than a few teams’ calendars, he has a ready answer.
“That’s what we signed up for,” he said. “That’s what we’ve built our team to be, and we’re going out there to make it happen.”
Tennessee snapped a 15-game losing streak against Alabama last season and beat Florida for only the second time in the past 18 seasons. The Vols have to travel to both Tuscaloosa and Gainesville this season, meaning the schedule could be more menacing than a year ago.
“We’re just playing a game that we love and doing the things we want to do, and that’s winning the East,” Milton said. “That’s something we’ve set our minds to and that’s something we’re willing to get done no matter what it takes.”
What Heupel has been most pleased with is that he hasn’t seen any complacency since the end of the Vols’ breakthrough season.
“There were great moments from last year, big wins, great victory scenes, the Orange Bowl win. Absolutely,” Heupel said. “But when we got back in January, nobody was living in that. There was a heightened sense of urgency, hyper competitiveness, more accountability.
“Now, you don’t know at this time of year how that parlays itself on Saturdays in the fall, but it gives you a chance.”
Senior tight end Jacob Warren grew up in Knoxville, and his father, James, played for Tennessee in the early 1990s. He gets the passion of the Big Orange Nation and has seen it spill overboard at times, especially with the Vols suffering through eight losing seasons in the previous 13 years before Heupel arrived.
“No one has higher expectations than we do, and I know the people and all the fans think they do. But no one wants it more than we do,” Warren said. “And nobody expects that we’re going to win more games than we do. We obviously appreciate the support, but no one has higher expectations than we do, and that’s the way it should be.”
Heupel said simply, “Our fan base is as passionate as any, and you want to get on the right side of that passion.”
It’s a fan base that can’t wait to see what Tennessee has for an encore in Year No. 3 under Heupel, who threw a little shade Texas’ way with the Longhorns set to join the SEC in 2024.
“There’s only one UT, one right shade of orange,” Heupel said.
If Tennessee’s players have their way, it’s a shade of orange that will be spread throughout Mercedes-Benz Stadium this Dec. 2 in the SEC championship game.