Tennessee will kick off their 2022 campaign in Neyland Stadium against Ball State, Sept. 1 under the lights. There is plenty to look forward to in year two of the Josh Heupel era with a high-flying offense and an aggressive defense.

The plan is there, now it’s all about improving off their 7-6 record in 2021. Heading into summer camp, I picked my preseason superlatives.

Newcomer of the Year

Everyone would think it would be Bru McCoy as he was a consensus Top-10 prospect coming out of high school who had off-the-field troubles and never worked out at USC. He has the size and athleticism, but the offense has already shown it can work with just about anyone plugged into Josh Heupel’s system. I think the not so obvious answer would be Andre Turrentine, the Ohio State transfer.

Returning to his home state after spending his first couple of seasons in Columbus, Turrentine is the perfect person to replace Theo Jackson in the nickel spot. This allows senior Trevon Flowers to stay in his safety spot and not have to move around and play outside of his natural position. He also will come in and help the Volunteers’ biggest weakness coming into the 2022 season, the secondary.

Breakout Player of the Year

This one is someone whom everyone thought would have a breakout season this year, Jalin Hyatt. Everyone thought Hyatt would have a big jump from his freshman to sophomore year and it made sense. Heupel brings an exciting, fast-paced, high-scoring offense. Unfortunately, Hyatt didn’t show much improvement and his numbers were almost the same.

The coaches this offseason have raved about how much more Hyatt has been in the facilities not just working on adding some weight to his frame, but how much more he’s been in the film room truly trying to learn the passing concepts and reading defenses. Especially with Javonta Payton and Velus Jones Jr. leaving for the NFL, I would expect Hyatt to make a big leap statistically and solidify himself as a slot receiver this season.

DPOY

A player who saw a sizeable change in playing time from 2020 to 2021 was linebacker Jeremy Banks improving from 28 total tackles to 128, just like Tillman, another All-SEC snub. I would expect more of the same from Banks, a downhill linebacker who has a real eye for the ball. One thing all fans hope to see from Banks is for him to reduce how many personal fouls he got last season, as this upcoming season it could potentially make or break some down-to-the-wire games for the Volunteers.

OPOY

If you watched last season at all you saw the emergence of Cedric Tillman come out of nowhere. He went from a three-star recruit with Tennessee being his only Power 5 offer out of high school, to being the number one wide-out on a team that scored the most points in school history.

Just like Banks, I would expect to see a lot of the same out of Tillman this upcoming season. Hopefully, he gets the honors of All-SEC after being snubbed of the honors last season.

MVP

I'm sure you're wondering, how is Hendon Hooker not the Offensive Player of the Year? That's because he will be the MVP of this team again. After having a very average career at Virginia Tech, the nation saw the rise of Hooker at Tennessee. A lot of the success he had can be thanks to the system coach Heupel has put him in. In his last season at VA Tech, Hooker posted 1,339 yards passing with a 9-5 touchdown to interception ratio. In his first season at Tennessee, he posted 2,945 yards with a 31-3 TD-INT ratio. I expect Hooker to break the 3,000 passing yard mark this season as he will be the clearcut starter and not miss the first game and a half like he did last year due to Joe Milton being named the starter. Hooker is the second-best QB returning to the SEC this year, behind reigning Heisman winner Bryce Young, and will continue to show improvement after having a complete off-season being able to finetune Heupel's system.