Quarterback Hendon Hooker Leads Tennessee To Highest Ranking Since 2006, Enters Heisman Trophy Race

On Saturday, Tennessee regained possession of the ball on the 1-yard line with less than three minutes remaining in the first half. The Volunteers trailed Florida, 14-10, in the SEC opener for both teams. It was a familiar position for a Tennessee program that has finished above .500 in conference play just twice in the past 14 years.

Still, unlike so many times in the previous decade-plus, the Volunteers responded with a 99-yard touchdown drive, culminating with quarterback Hendon Hooker’s 1-yard pass. They then opened the second half with a 10-play, 73-yard scoring drive, ending with another Hooker touchdown throw, this time a 16-yarder for a 24-14 lead.

Tennessee hung on for a 38-33 victory, thanks to an interception in the final minute to clinch its biggest win in a few years. For the nearly 102,000 fans in attendance at Neyland Stadium, the game brought back memories of the Volunteer’s golden days more than 20 years ago and gave them some hope that maybe the team could contend near the top of the SEC.

The Volunteers (4-0) are now eighth in the Associated Press poll, their highest ranking since they were seventh during the 2006 season. And Hooker, 24 and a sixth-year senior, is the main reason why Tennessee is relevant again, at least for now.

Hooker has the fourth-best betting odds for the Heisman Trophy, according to DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and PointsBet, as compiled by RotoWire. Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud is the clear favorite at between +125 to +150. Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, the reigning Heisman winner, is next at between +350 to +500, followed by USC quarterback Caleb Williams at between +600 and +650.

Hooker is well behind those three at between +1,600 and +1,700, but he is playing as well as anyone in the country and has opportunities in the coming weeks to show whether his Heisman candidacy is real or simply an early season mirage.

Hooker this season has completed 71.4% of his passes for 1,170 yards, seven touchdowns and no interceptions and run for 175 yards and three touchdowns. On Saturday, he had the best game of his career, completing 22 of 28 passes (78.6%), throwing for two touchdowns, gaining 112 yards on 13 carries and running for a touchdown.

“Man, Hendon played his butt off tonight,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said during his postgame press conference on Saturday. “He played at an elite level – decisive with the football, accurate with the football, intermediate, short, long, used his legs at the right time, created big plays there. Just a tough competitor, man. Offensively, we fed off of him all night long.”

For Hooker, Saturday was much different than his early days at Tennessee when the program was in flux. Hooker, a native of Greensboro, N.C., enrolled at Virginia Tech in 2017. He redshirted that first year and appeared in only six games in the 2018 season and didn’t attempt a pass. Over the next two seasons, Hooker started 15 of the 18 games he appeared in, throwing for 2,894 yards, 22 touchdowns and seven interceptions and running for 976 yards and 14 touchdowns.

After graduating from Virginia Tech in December 2020, Hooker entered the transfer portal. The next month, he announced via Twitter that he would play at Tennessee, which was coming off a 3-7 season. Less than two weeks later, Tennessee fired coach Jeremy Pruitt amid potential recruiting violations, while athletic director Phillip Fulmer retired. Fulmer was Tennessee’s coach for 17 years, including from 1995 to 2001 when the Volunteers ended the season in the top 10 in six of seven years, highlighted by winning the national title in the 1998 season.

By the time Fulmer departed as coach in 2008, following a 5-7 season, the Volunteers were no longer an elite program. When he left as AD, they were in even worse shape.

Still, in late January 2021, Tennessee hired two young highly touted people in the college athletics field, both from the University of Central Florida: Danny White as athletic director and Heupel as coach.

Hooker began last season as a backup to Joe Milton, a transfer from the University of Michigan. But after Milton sustained an injury in the second game of the season against Pittsburgh, Hooker took over and never relinquished his role. In 13 games, Hooker completed 68% of his passes for 2,945 yards, 31 touchdowns and only three interceptions. He also ran for 616 yards and five touchdowns.

The Volunteers’ record, though, wasn’t nearly impressive as Hooker’s statistics. They finished last season 7-6 overall and 4-4 in the SEC, and they entered this season unranked in the polls. Now, they are in the top 10, although they are facing a difficult stretch that will determine whether the hype is warranted.

After a bye week, Tennessee returns to action at unranked LSU, always a difficult road environment. During the next four weeks, the Volunteers host No. 2 Alabama on Oct. 15 and No. 7 Kentucky on Oct. 29 and play at No. 1 Georgia on Nov. 5.

If Tennessee can win two or more of those games, Hooker should remain in Heisman contention and have a chance to become the first Volunteers player to win the award. Based on the program’s recent history, Tennessee should not be mentioned in the same category as Alabama and Georgia and the other premier SEC programs. But Hooker and Heupel seem to have a good chemistry, as Heupel himself was a top college quarterback, placing second in the 2000 Heisman voting and leading Oklahoma to the national title that year.

During Heupel’s three seasons as UCF’s head coach, the Golden Knights were among the top 10 in scoring each year. Meanwhile, Tennessee was seventh in the nation in scoring (39.7 points per game) last year in Heupel’s first season and is fifth this year at 48.5 points per game.

During his press conference after Saturday’s game, Hooker said he remembered talking to Heupel when Hooker was a high school player and Heupel was an assistant at Missouri. Hooker never visited Missouri, but he became impressed with Heupel over the next few years.

“His offense is amazing,” Hooker said. “I remember when he was at UCF, I used to watch their games on ESPN whenever I could. I was a big fan. Once I learned he was coming here to be our head coach, I was very excited.”