When Tennessee football takes the field Thursday against Ball State, it will do so inside a very different Neyland Stadium. Offseason renovations dating back to last November have brought more flare to the venue.

The changes include a combination of history and new. That’s something the Vols have been superb at balancing so far with Josh Heupel and Danny White.

“I don’t think it’s difficult because our players and our staff and myself, we love the traditions,” Heupel said at Wednesday’s SEC teleconference. “You want to be at a place that has those because of the winning traditions that they’ve had, the great coaches, the great players that have come through here, things that our fan base absolutely latches onto.”

Tennessee football restores the V-O-L-S letters

In 1999, the Vols opened the season without the iconic V-O-L-S letters, as they made room for the new jumbotron. They were defending national champions, but they haven’t even won an SEC Championship since.

Those letters are back. The stadium still has a jumbotron, but the letters have gone up on either side of them. That’s a perfect example of bringing back a tradition but giving it new flare.

Heupel noted Tennessee football would incorporate the new letters in its entrance when running through the T. He said traditions like that are what makes being at UT so great.

“The V-O-L-S letters coming back are extremely exciting,” he said. “Everybody in our fan base has loved that as they’ve gotten a chance to see those go up during the course of the summer.”

In addition to the letters, the stadium now has a second jumbotron added to the North End Zone. They had to take out seats, but it still remains above 100,000.

Neyland also now has new luxury seats, a new party deck and a lounge area. Simply put it is now more up to date while keeping tradition.

“I think our fans are going to absolutely love some of the new amenities inside of our stadium and our players are ready to go compete underneath that, too,” Heupel said.

New Tennessee football traditions beyond Neyland

Of course, the stadium isn’t the only new twist Tennessee football is bringing out this year. The Vols also have new uniforms once again.

After five different combinations in 2021, they are bringing back the Smokey Greys. They haven’t used those since the Butch Jones era.

These uniforms will be added to the all black uniforms they wore last year. They also wore orange jerseys with orange pants, orange jerseys with white pants, white jerseys with white pants and white jerseys with orange pants.

As White noted last year, a part of Tennessee football’s tradition in the past has been, well, breaking tradition. This program was a trailblazer in integrating the SEC in the 1960s and also embraced Title IX in the 1970s.

Those are all traditions now, but they weren’t at the time. White exemplified that with last year’s statues of Lester McClain, Jackie Walker, Condredge Holloway and Tee Martin going up in front of the stadium.

Simply put, at a place like UT, it’s not hard to figure out how to balance tradition with inserting new flare. Heupel sees that value as much as anybody.

“I think it’s important in recruiting, too, but it’s fun and exciting and our fan base absolutely loves some of the things that we introduced last year,” he said. “So celebrating those iconic traditions here on Rocky Top and being able to introduce some new, exciting things is a lot of fun and something that I think everybody in our fan base and inside of our program enjoy.”