When Josh Heupel and his staff first arrived at Tennessee, the Vols’ offense blitzed opposing defenses using explosive plays.
In 2021, Tennessee finished 12th in plays over 30 yards and 7th in plays over 40 yards. Then, in the explosive offense under Hendon Hooker in 2022, Tennessee led the nation in plays over 30 yards and 40 yards, and was second in the nation in plays over 50 yards.
When something is working to that extent, though, teams are going to make drastic adjustments. Opposing teams were forced to start dropping more players into soft coverage, often with 3-3-5 looks, which forced Tennessee’s offense to play underneath more rather than throwing the ball over the top of the defense. While that’s opened up opportunities for Jaylen Wright and Dylan Sampson to have breakout seasons on the ground, it’s dropped Tennessee’s number of 30+ yard plays to 52nd in 2023 and 78th in 2024.
There’s the notion of playing into what the defense gives you and finding success where you can, but the explosive plays are something that Tennessee has seemingly put a lot of stock into this offseason. Joey Halzle talked about that in great detail during Tennessee’s in-house media day on Tuesday in Knoxville.
“That’s been the entire focus of the offseason,” Halzle said when asked how UT can generate more explosive plays this season. “Is when people are playing really, really soft and dropping in coverage, how do we keep being explosive in the passing game? And that’s why, once again, we ran the ball the way we did last year. But it’s not going to be that we’re going to just say that that’s par for the course now. The entire focus of this offseason is, how do we get our playmakers in space with the ball in their hands where they can run and do what we’ve recruited them here to do?
So feel like we’ve made some changes, we’ve done some things differently, but we’re never going to lose sight of who we are, which is to be extremely aggressive with how we call it, to push the tempo, to make people play in space, but what are the one or two little different things that we can do that help free people up and when people are playing really, really soft and saying, alright, you’re not going over the top today, what are we going to do to attack that and not let them set the directive of the game.”
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There are factors that go into that that’ll shake out throughout fall camp. In addition to scheme from the coaches, it’ll be up to Tennessee’s new crop of wide receivers and the winner of UT’s quarterback battle to make those plays happen. Transfer quarterback Joey Aguilar was known for being aggressive with his throws at App State, but don’t count out Jake Merklinger in his first true opportunity to lead the Vols offense, either.
Hearing that from Halzle is sure to excite the Vols fanbase, considering the drop-off from this staff’s first two seasons compared to the last two seasons. And before the Nico Iamaleava drama unraveled in the spring and changed the narrative to put the spotlight on the Vols’ quarterback battle, that was one of the main talking points for people coming out of the 2024 season.
We’ll see how things shake out soon, but that was undoubtedly one of the most notable takeaways from the start of Tennessee training camp this week. Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more preseason coverage as the week goes on.
