All right.

Hey, it's been a little while, but Eric Kane of VolQuest and the Locked on Balls podcast.

Eric, how are you, man?

I'm great, man.

I really appreciate you having me on.

And it's been a little bit, but man, it's going to be just a blink of an eye.

Football season will be right back here with SEC Media Days we were talking about and fall camp in the best time of the year.

So just a little bit longer to go.

We're almost there.

Hey, have you seen this where, I don't know. I don't know if you've noticed it, but a lot of

people, a lot of national ESPN, SEC, it seems like everywhere I look, Eric, people are doubting

the Valls. They think, you know, not preseason top 25 even, down year for Heipel.

Where are these people getting this from? Do you know?

Well, I'm not just think in the era of the transfer portal when you can upgrade your roster at the quarterback position significantly.

It's anytime you have a hole in your roster, a starter leaves, a starter goes to the NFL.

It's not, oh, well, they have that five-star waiting in the wing, or oh, they have an in-state, you know, guy coming in here that's been a year or whatever. It's who can you get? Who can you get? And, I mean, that's human nature. I mean, that's, you know, at a lot of positions. That's how I feel as well. And so, and Tennessee was active. Tennessee looked into Brendan Sorsby a little bit. Good thing they didn't pursue that one too hard.

They obviously were... active. Tennessee looked into Brendan Sorsby a little bit. Good thing they didn't pursue that

one too hard. They obviously were kind of at the altar. I wouldn't say at the altar. They were

very, very far along with Sam Levitt, and obviously he elected to go to LSU. And, you know, they

had Beau Perbula in on a visit, but I think Tennessee just kind of passed and were're fine with the internal options they had. And so they obviously tried to get Joey, or Joey Aguilar, tried to get eligible and try to get back for another year. So they explored options, no doubt, but at the end of the day, they were, you know, pretty pleased with, you know, the recruiting they did to get those guys here on campus and George McIntyre and Faison Branden. But from the outside looking in, you see, oh, well, Tennessee missed on Soresby, Tennessee missed on Levin. Oh, my goodness, they have no experience at quarterback. You know, defense had a horrible year last year. And so I kind of get it from the outside perspective. But even in saying that, man, I think that Josh Heippel needs the benefit of the doubt when it comes to quarterback play.

Now, I do think this will be probably his biggest challenge yet, not from a talent perspective, but just a challenge that they're just so young and raw.

But, you know, he got, he turned Hinden Hooker's career around. He got good football out of Joe Milton.

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