Tennessee Volunteers College Football Pregame Quote, 12/28/2022

On offensive coordinator Alex Golesh leaving to be the head coach at USF and its impacts at UT:

JOEY HALZLE: I was really happy for AG when he got that opportunity. He had been wanting to be a head coach and he got a great opportunity. So it was all good on our side. If someone gets a chance to live out a dream, it’s a great thing to see and be able to do. (The dynamic) has been great. The staff has been together for a long time. A lot of us were at UCF together and a lot of us were at Missouri together as well. We’ve been together a long time. I think because of that we’ve had a great move over to this new situation where we’re not fully staffed right now but everybody is just taking on different roles that they haven’t had to do and just making sure it’s as fluid as possible.

On the challenges of Clemson’s defense:

JOEY HALZLE: They’re an attacking style defense. They like to pressure and get up in your face. They try to change the looks on the quarterbacks, wide outs and the line. What you see is a defense that’s clearly well coached. They scheme well and game plan well. They play really hard so they present a really unique challenge.

On quarterback Joe Milton III:

JOEY HALZLE: He’s been extremely intentional in his preparation. It hasn’t been too big for him. He hasn’t changed who he is, but in the same breath he understands his new role of having to lead this team. He’s done a really good job of not having the moment be too big for him. He’s completely dialed in to what we’re seeing and what we’re expecting and how we’re going to attack it. I’m actually excited to watch him go take the field on Friday night.