Josh Heupel has found his way to triumphs over rivals Alabama and Florida, but the Tennessee coach was reminded at SEC Media Days that he has not beaten Georgia.
“Yeah, we haven’t been able to be on the right side of the scoreboard in that game,” said Heupel, who will open the SEC portion of the schedule against the Bulldogs on Sept. 13 at Neyland Stadium.
“That’s players and coaches, together, ultimately being a little bit better.”
Heupel, entering his fifth season, ended what had been a 15-game losing streak for Tennessee against Alabama by scoring a 52-49 win over a Nick Saban-coached Crimson Tide team in 2022 and knocked off Coach Kalen DeBoer’s first Bama team last year, 24-17.
The Volunteers have a 10-game losing streak to Florida in The Swamp, but Heupel has beaten the Gators two of the past three seasons — something Tennessee hadn’t done since winning back-to-back games in the rivalry in 2003 and 2004.
But Georgia is a puzzle that Heupel, a former Oklahoma national championship quarterback, has not been able to solve.
Georgia has won eight consecutive games in the border-state rivalry game with Tennessee — one short of tying the nine-game win streak the Vols had over the Bulldogs from 1989-99 under coaches Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer.
Kirby Smart was 0-4 against Tennessee as a player at Georgia, but Smart has made it a point to have his Bulldogs on edge and ready for the Vols since losing on a Hail Mary pass to Tennessee in 2016 in his first season leading the UGA program.
Heupel’s Vols have scored first in each of the past four meetings with Georgia, but the Bulldogs have rallied to win each time:
-UGA 41, Tennessee 17 (Knoxville, 2021)
-UGA 27, Tennessee 13 (Athens, 2022)
-UGA 38, Tennessee 10 (Knoxville, 2023)
-UGA 31, Tennessee 17 (Athens, 2024)
“Last year, it was a tight ballgame in the fourth quarter,” said Heupel, whose team was shutout in the second half of last year’s game, ultimately going down two touchdowns with 2:26 left on Nate Frazier’s 2-yard touchdown run.
“For us, it’s tying all three phases of the game together.”
Tennessee jumped out to a 10-0 first-quarter lead before Carson Beck rallied the Bulldogs with back-to-back touchdown drives capped by Oscar Delp touchdown receptions of 19 and 4 yards.
Beck has moved on to play for Miami, but Delp returns at tight end and is expected to be an impact player.
Georgia outgained Tennessee 453-319 yards in last season’s contest, even as Heupel felt it was a relatively close game.
“Kirby and their staff and their players have done a really good job and have played really well in those games,” Heupel said.
“It will be important for us in Week Three that we’re ready to go play at the level that we need to against a really good football team.”
Both Tennessee and Georgia will have new starting quarterbacks this season.
Gunner Stockton projects to start for UGA while UCLA transfer Joey Aguilar expected to fill the spot vacated by Nico Iamaleava.
Heupel declined to elaborate on Iamaleava’s transfer at the end of spring drills.
“At the end of the day, it’s never about who’s not in your building — it’s about who is in your building,” Heupel said Tuesday. “And for us, you can lose a quarterback at a lot of different times, right?
“December transfer, spring transfer, or you can lose one Week One, first quarter of the ballgame …. and now you’re on No. 2, through injury, so we gotta have the next guy up mentality.”
Stockton will get his first SEC road test at Neyland Stadium.
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