Forget the 11 Tennessee wins last season. Forget the 8-0 start and the Vols being ranked No. 1 in the College Football Playoff Top 25 in November. Forget the home wins over Alabama and Florida and the thumping of LSU in Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n
Forget the Orange Bowl win over Clemson<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n Tennessee players last week<\/a> at SEC Media Days weren\u2019t all that interested in talking about what happened during a magical 2022 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a good year last year,\u201d defensive lineman Omari Thomas<\/a><\/strong> said, \u201cbut we have to turn that page. We can\u2019t keep living in the past. We understand what happened last year, but we\u2019re looking to do big things this year.\u201d<\/p>\n The Vols turned the page long ago, but it officially turns against Virginia on September 2 (Noon ET, ABC) in the season opener at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a good team,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cWe\u2019re just looking real forward to playing those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n Tennessee, the way Thomas described it, is a hungry team. The Vols didn\u2019t get their fill in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Thomas said, \u201cwe\u2019re not being complacent. We understand that everything just has to fall the way we want it to fall. We just know we have to continue to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n Tennessee on Friday was picked to finish fourth in the SEC and second in the SEC East, receiving 14 first-place votes in the division. Georgia, the defending back-to-back champion, received 181 votes to win the SEC and 256 votes to win the SEC East.\u00a0<\/p>\n That crown is the goal the Vols have their eyes set on first. And Josh Heupel<\/a><\/strong> makes sure his team knows it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal will be to win the SEC East,\u201d redshirt senior tight end Jacob Warren<\/a><\/strong> said on Thursday in Nashville<\/a>. \u201cIf you do that, that sets you up to go do everything you want. Opportunity to play in the SEC championship, get the opportunity if you win that to go play in the national championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 If we win those games, you set yourself up for everything you want. That\u2019s what he means when he says we didn\u2019t get the job done. We had a great season. A lot of people outside the program wouldn\u2019t have expected us to have won 11 games last year, go to New Year\u2019s Six bowl, win the Orange Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n Those same people would say Tennessee\u2019s 2022 season \u2014 it was the program\u2019s first 11-win season since 2001 and the first New Years Six bowl appearance in the College Football Playoff Era \u2014 checked every goal and then some.<\/p>\n The Vols disagree.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people from the outside would say, \u2018That\u2019s a good job, you probably reached all your goals, did everything you were looking out to do,\u2019\u201d Warren said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, that\u2019s last year. We\u2019ve done a good job of resetting. But now the focus is on winning the SEC East and doing everything we can to get ourselves in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n The post \u2018We\u2019re not complacent\u2019: Vols not resting on last season\u2019s success<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Forget the 11 Tennessee wins last season. Forget the 8-0 start and the Vols being…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Omari Thomas: \u2018We just know we have to continue to grow\u2019<\/h2>\n
Up Next: Tennessee vs. Virginia, September 2, Nissan Stadium Nashville<\/h2>\n