MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Joe Milton kept his football after taking a final knee on the grass in the final snap of the latest Tennessee victory over the national championship football program to cap off the best Tennessee season in decades .
He backpedaled on the grass of Hard Rock Stadium, about 85 miles from where he grew up, and got in line to greet his teammates. Friday night turned into Saturday morning. Hendon Hooker’s Tennessee had turned into Joe Milton’s Tennessee. The scoreboard read him No. 6 Vols 31, No. 7 Clemson Tigers 14. Families and coaches of UT players streamed onto the field as the large stage rolled onto the field. Before long, Milton worked with coach Josh Hupel, who inherited the past program, and in two years turned it into a goal for the future — a destination for top talent, a problem for many, and colleges involved. Football outpost again.
Milton was there to win the Orange Bowl MVP award after tallying 251 yards and three touchdowns, but he got distracted and looked around and visually saw a mass of teammates around the stage. I tried to choose
where is he? where’s the hook
Then he spotted him, just as Ramel Keyton found him in the middle of the night’s play, Hooker quickly took the stage on crutches.Brought on by Jeremy Pruitt 2 years ago Transferred from previous school to Virginia Tech. Next to his two-year-old transfer from Michigan, Heupel brought in. Rivals for the same job, roommates, best friends. Tennessee legend.
After helping UT to 11 wins for the first time since the 2001 season, Milton later said of Hooker, “It felt special to have him there.” You brought us here, so I had to make it happen for him.”
Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton celebrates after throwing a touchdown pass against Clemson in the second half. (Jasen Vinlove / USA Today)
That’s very true, but it’s also accurate to call Milton a Vols legend, as he was hailed as Ann Arbor’s next great thing in Michigan in 2020 after beating out Hooker early in the 2021 season. He could fail again next season. Five-star freshman Nico Iamareaba, who has already joined the team and was on the sidelines in plainclothes on Friday, may be destined to overtake Milton.
It’s also possible that Friday was a preview of a potentially successful 2023 season with Milton. Cheating success in the playoffs? That is the limit of human imagination. But it’s easy to imagine Milton working effectively in Hupel’s offense. After seeing him beat Clemson with a few throws.
That’s what Milton is, 6-5, 245 pounds. Even if he doesn’t pull it all together and become the NFL darling that was expected all those years ago, we won’t forget him in Knoxville. You’ll be the star who found the , or the star who had all the tools but didn’t. Either way, they talk about Orange his bowl MVP Joe his Milton.
He is unlikely to have a 2023 season that can match what Hooker accomplished in 2021, and before tearing his ACL in a brutal South Carolina loss, Hooker was the Heisman favorite before the Vols declined. Milton’s Tennessee offense on Friday can’t match the Tennessee offense in charge of Hooker without the top two receivers.
Hooker conducted the symphony for two seasons. Fluid, fast, playing across the field, quarterbacking as an art. Milton’s Tennessee offense is like his band in the garage still figuring things out, sometimes turning people close to their ears off.
Milton needs to keep his rhythm a little more consistent. There were some bags he couldn’t take. Five three-and-outs.
But he showed sense in the moment on Friday. A 16-yard laser to Blue McCoy for the first touchdown of the game? A 14-yard dart to Rhys White to make it 21-6? Both in the middle for tight coverage? It’s not the acoustic “Row Row Row Your Boat” for beginners. These aren’t the throws most coaches want most quarterbacks to choose, but Milton ripped them both and McCoy and White, who should be next season’s top two receivers, made great catches.
UT quarterback coach Joey Harzl said in the winner’s locker room how Milton impacted safety in the middle of the field before throwing a White touchdown.
The biggest play of the game came when it really started to turn into a game, going 3 for 9 from UT 41, with about 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter, cutting the lead to 21-14. Milton came back, scanned the field and came to Ramel Keaton across the middle. It might have been an interception if I threw it at first sight.
“We thought the ball would really stop touching early[in play]. They dropped someone in the window,” Harzl said of Clemson’s zone coverage. “Joe did a great job of feeling that window and pushing it into the next window. And Ramel did a great job of not going off route.”
It was a moment when I felt a lot of pressure. It was an on-the-spot adjustment and a strike, gaining a gain of 13. He beat his man in the goal route, safety without a man couldn’t get there, and Milton dropped 1 for a 46-yard touchdown. No more contests.
“He managed the game really well,” Harzl said of Milton. “He took shots when they were there and didn’t push them onto the field when they weren’t there. He hit the long balls he didn’t hit. Those were competitive plays. Those were the ones.” You can’t make everything work, some work, some work, and he was very accurate on all (intermediate) routes.These guys were catching and running.
And Hooker was getting what he wanted in an article he wrote for the Players’ Tribune titled “Thanks, Tennessee.” This is his love letter to UT he, the joy of winning against Alabama (a key moment of the season) and Hooker’s loss to South Carolina, torn ACL and ending Vols’ playoff hopes. Focus on suffering. In it, he wrote of Milton: The first thing he said to me was after my surgery, he looked at me and said: It wasn’t easy in the second half of the season, but it meant a lot.”
The Vols have meant a lot to Hookers and have been with the team on their bowl trips. Even when he was in rehab for his knee in California, he was on his Zoom attending quarterbacks’ meetings with him. He was examining his sheet for the team’s game call against Milton the night before his bowl at his hotel Orange. As the Vols left the field, entered the tunnel, and entered the locker room, Hooker was at the center of it all, smiling, embracing it all as he crouched through the door, celebrating another win before rehab and rehab. . The future of the NFL.
“This wouldn’t happen without Hendon,” Huepel said at the post-match press conference about his turnaround and dream season. “And I’ll say it, and these guys will say it too. He’s special. When you build a program, someone has to pitch that message from the inside every day.”
Like a maestro, Hooker did everything skillfully and gently. Standing in the winning locker room, Harzl tried to verbalize Hooker’s influence, calling him “one of the best young men I’ve ever been around, in or out of football.”
Milton walked past the quarterback coach and potential Tennessee offensive coordinator as he spoke to reporters. Milton threw his arm into the air, caught a high five from Harzl, and bellowed “Joey!” with his one power of throw.
Knoxville is going to be noisy, folks.
(From left, Josh Hupel, Joe Milton and Hendon Hooker celebrate Tennessee’s Orange Bowl victory. Photo above: Doug Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)