The commemorative football is prominently displayed in Josh Heupel’s office.
The inscription across its face—Tennessee 52, Alabama 49—is positioned, certainly without coincidence, to face a large sectional leather couch and a table with chairs. Hard to miss, the football is a not-so-subtle reminder to those who enter—ahem, recruits—that the Volunteers took down the Crimson Tide in one of the most epic thrillers of the 2022 college football season.
“Everybody involved in our program hears about that one,” Heupel says. “There were a lot of cigars that hadn’t been lit for a long time. It does mean a lot.”
