Tennessee used a good amount of rotation with its offensive line in its loss to Alabama on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa. The Vols had seven different players play the five spots on the offensive line, though offensive tackle Bennett Warren and center William Satterwhite only played six snaps and three snaps, respectively.
Lance Heard played the vast majority of the left tackle snaps during the game. Warren entered for Heard during a quick injury break, but it didn’t take Heard long to get back into the action. At the left guard spot, starter Sham Umarov played 50 snaps while Wendell Moe played 35 snaps. Sam Pendleton took all 82 of his snaps at center, but Satterwhite did come in for three plays during the game. On the right side of the line, Wendell Moe played the majority of his game at right guard with 50 snaps, but as previously mentioned, did slide over to left guard for a good chunk of the game as well. Starting right tackle Jesse Perry had 26 snaps at right tackle and 35 snaps at right guard. And, finally, true freshman David Sanders Jr. played all 49 of his plays at the right tackle position.
It’s a lot of words to say this: Lance Heard and Sam Pendleton were at their starting positions for the vast majority of the game, but the left guard, right guard, and right tackle spots saw a good bit of rotation.
Josh Heupel gave his thoughts on the Vols’ rotations during his Monday afternoon press conference with the media.
“Yeah, continuity does matter,” Heupel said. “The positions that guys played in, that’s how they trained. Your offensive line, very rarely in a given year are five guys going to start and play every rep all year long. And so they cross-trained at different spots. And getting David (Sanders) back allows us the ability to move those guys around a little bit. I do think they have comfort in playing different spots, and communication is solid. Ultimately, there’s a couple of things that we got to do a little bit better. I don’t think that’s directly correlated to guys moving. I think it’s just timing and how we executed it.”
Heupel also confirmed that Tennessee plans to continue rotating the cross-trained players around. It’s unclear if that will be more, less, or the same as what took place against Alabama.
“Yeah, we’ll have some rotation with our front five,” Heupel said when asked if the rotations will continue moving forward.
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David Sanders Jr. had the highest overall grade from Pro Football Focus at 84.1 during the Alabama game. He earned an 84.1 grade in pass blocking and a 69.4 grade in run blocking. Sanders was a five-star prospect in the 2025 recruiting class, Tennessee’s highest-rated signee in the cycle, but missed the first four games of the season due to injury. He made his Tennessee debut during the Mississippi State game, playing in 11 snaps on the field. He then doubled that number at 22 snaps during his second game against Arkansas. Sanders had his highest workload of the season against Alabama with 49 snaps.
Sanders is clearly a high-quality, young player who Tennessee will rely on in the years to come. Redshirt freshman Jesse Perry had been starting at right tackle in Sanders’ absence and through his return. Sanders’ addition to the rotation obviously gave Tennessee some extra wiggle room to work with on the line, which will continue moving forward, according to Heupel’s statement on Monday.
Click here to look at the complete PFF breakdown for Tennessee’s offensive line during the Alabama game on Saturday.
