Heupel praises Kamara for Tennessee support

Getting players in the NFL is one of the best recruiting pitches for college programs. Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel briefly spoke on that in Wednesday’s teleconference after former Tennessee and current New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara helped celebrate Saturday’s win over Alabama by showing up to Heupel’s postgame press conference. 

“We have such a great past of storied players, but this program, for a long time, and certainly recently just our VFLs, our former players being back and being a part of the fabric and the culture of this program. AK’s back here multiple times throughout the off season and obviously shows up whenever he can during the course of the season too.

“But Alontae Taylor, Darnell Wright, the list goes on-and-on of current NFL players that were back  in so many storied players from the ‘80s, ‘90s, early 200s, were back too. This university does a great a job of providing them a great game day experience for the former players where they get a chance to interact, they’re down right on the sideline and get taken care of. And it’s just, it’s really special to have all of those guys back. You guys see them for the big games, but they’re here all year long and a number of former players that we have out on the practice field every single day. It’s unlike anything I’ve been a part of. It’s just, it’s a really special culture here.”

Tennessee has had 13 total players drafted in the three years since Josh Heupel has been in Knoxville, the same number from the previous seven years combined.