Taylor Swift, Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal, and the “Tush Push” have taken over the football world this fall.
But for fear of making people mad just from the first sentence alone, let’s stick with the last point.
The tush push, or “The Brotherly Shove” as some put it, has become a widely talked-about play across the football landscape this season. The Philadelphia Eagles have made the play prominent with quarterback Jalen Hurts, which has led to widespread opinions on the legitimacy of the play.
For those unaware, the tush push is a play to get one yard, usually on fourth down, where the offense lines up for a quarterback sneak. The offense then has two players lined up behind the quarterback to shove them forward on the sneak attempt. The Eagles, who have the play mastered thanks to the skill of quarterback Jalen Hurts and center Jason Kelce, are nearly unstoppable at picking up the first down.
The Tush Push worked for the Eagles two plays in a row vs the #Dolphins pic.twitter.com/5x2Kx9To2e
— Tanner Phifer (@TannerPhiferNFL) October 23, 2023
More from RTI: How Tennessee Football Is Connected To The Michigan Sign-Stealing Scandal
While many football critics are calling for the play to be banned moving forward, many fanbases across college football and the NFL are calling for their teams to start using the seemingly unstoppable play.
Tennessee has struggled with fourth-down efficiency this season. The Vols are 3-13 on the year with a 0-3 showing against Florida, a 0-2 showing against Texas A&M, and a 0-3 showing against Alabama.
“At the end of the day, we gotta find a way to pick up the first down,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said on Monday. “We’ve used a lot of different formations. We’ve been under center, been in gun, we’ve used it all. So we gotta find a way to pick it up in those two critical situations.”
Josh Heupel Addresses The Tush Push
Considering the challenge that Tennessee has had advancing the ball on fourth down this year, the media asked Heupel about the potential implementation of the tush push with Joe Milton moving forward. Heupel stated on Wednesday that the tush push is a concept that the staff studied over the offseason.
“I think practicing your goal line situations over the course of the season or your short yardage is one of the tougher things to do— to get the true tempo, speed of what it’s going to be and what it’s going to feel like during the course of a football game,” Heupel said. “It’s actually something that we had studied during the offseason. I didn’t realize it was called the tush push which is why I asked where that was coming from during Monday’s media conference. They’re (Philadelphia) extremely, extremely good at it. That’s cause of the five guys they’ve got up front. Their center is an all pro and does an unbelievable job and their quarterback is dynamic with it too so they have a lot of elements to make that work and it’s certainly something we have looked at.”
Heupel’s answer, though long, didn’t give great insight into whether Tennessee is going to try to use it this season. But from multiple appearances throughout the season, the coaching staff is committed to working on these situations both from an efficiency perspective and from a usage perspective.
We’ll see what Tennessee does if the situation comes up this Saturday in a critical SEC East rivalry matchup.
Kentucky will host No. 21 Tennessee this Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. ET in Lexington.
