Tennessee football fans were confused on Saturday night when Josh Heupel elected not to call a timeout following a 42-yard pass from Nico Iamaleava to Dont’e Thornton in the final minute of UT’s 19-14 loss at Arkansas.
Heupel admitted on Monday that he should have called a timeout with 35 seconds remaining in the game when Thornton’s catch moved Tennessee down to the 25-yard line.
“In hindsight, yep, for sure,” Heupel said when asked about his clock management. “As I recognized that we weren’t immediately ready, thought about going to timeout, then I thought we were ready to get the ball off in the next couple seconds.”
13 seconds ran off the clock between the time Thornton made the catch and Tennessee snapped the ball again. Heupel had two timeouts remaining at the time.
