Former Tennessee football quarterback Hendon Hooker was around SEC Media Days on Monday. He wasn’t answering questions about Tennessee though.
Instead, he was in Nashville representing Bush’s Baked Beans. Nevertheless, Hooker took time to answer questions about the future of Tennessee football and Joe Milton.
Milton, who will be in town for SEC Media Days on Thursday for his turn at the unofficial kickoff to football season. Hooker was there just a year ago.
“Joe is going to be great,” Hooker said. “He’s a vet guy, he’s been in the spotlight before at Michigan and this past season in the backend at Tennessee. This is nothing new to Joe, he knows how to conduct himself. I’m looking forward to the season.”
Hooker has full confidence in Milton moving into 2023. Outside of Tennessee, there have been questions about Milton accuracy and his past issues with overthrows. Accuracy questions surrounded Hooker at times as well.
“I went from 67% completion rate to 69% completion rate. Before that, 65% completion rate when there’s guys out here who aren’t even throwing 50%,” Hooker said. “I never thought accuracy was ever my problem. Being on the same page as the receiver, a different story. But I always thought I put the ball where my guy needed to get it.”
Being on the same page as the receiver? Juggling two quarterbacks, between Milton and Hooker, could have contributed to the storylines around Milton’s accuracy issues.
The chemistry between a receiver and his quarterback is one of the most important things on the field. Yes, with time the issue is fixed. But time is hard to come by in an SEC season.
Milton has the offseason as the presumptive starting quarterback to get his chemistry down.
Sometimes they can see something on the field differently from the quarterback just about us coming back to the sideline and talking about what we saw, what we thought,” Hooker said. “Or ‘Hey come out at this angle next time and then do this.’
“It’s me thinking that the receiver might be doing something else and then sometimes I’m trying to change the arm angle in mid-throw and then it’s a whole lot of things, you know that goes into that.”
While being on the wrong page with receivers may have hurt Hooker’s completion percentage, his interception numbers remained low. As for Milton, Hooker has confidence that the summer of working with receivers will secure Milton’s accuracy and chemistry with the wideouts.
The real question of if any defense will ever catch up to Josh Heupel’s offense was met with an instant response from Hooker.
“Nah.”
