Hendon Hooker's journey to QB1 at Tennessee

Until Saturday: A show about college football

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4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Andy catches up with Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker, whose journey to the starting job in Knoxville started at Virginia Tech. When it became clear his time in Blacksburg was done, Hooker decided to move to Tennessee as a graduate transfer. Eleven days later, Tennessee fired its head coach. The new staff initially made Hooker the backup, but he took control of the job in week two and sparked more joy than Neyland Stadium has seen in years for the remainder of the season. QB1 discusses how he kept the faith and how explosive Tennessee's offense could be in 2022.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Andy Staples show.
0:20.7	Big, big interview today.
0:22.3	Two in a row, we had Dave Miranda on Monday, which was absolutely fascinating.
0:26.4	Got a really good one for you today.
0:29.2	We caught up with Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker in Knoxville, and Hendon was one of the most interesting stories of the 2021 season.
0:39.2	He transfers to Tennessee from Virginia Tech, and He'd been the starter at Virginia Tech. It became clear he was not going to be their
0:43.9	2021 starter, so he transfers to Tennessee. But he transferred when Jeremy Pruitt was Tennessee's coach.
0:50.9	11 days after Hennon Hooker decided on Tennessee, Jeremy Pruitt got fired.
0:55.9	Then Josh Hypoe gets hired.
0:57.8	Hindenhooker goes through spring practice.
0:59.7	He's not the starter.
1:01.4	They bring in Joe Milton, the transfer from Michigan.
1:04.1	Joe Milton wins the job out of camp.
1:06.2	So where does that leave Hennon Hooker?
1:08.6	Well, as you'll find out, it left him not really discouraged,
1:14.6	not feeling like he made the wrong decision, just kind of working his way through,
1:18.7	and he winds up becoming the starter early in the season, and then leading Tennessee to a
1:24.9	much better than expected season. And when Josh Heipel got there, they basically had year zero expectations.
1:30.6	You didn't know if Tennessee was going to be able to win, you know, maybe two or three games in the SEC.
1:36.1	You didn't know how many wins total.
1:37.4	Certainly didn't expect them to go to a bowl game.
1:39.5	They won seven games.
	...

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