Tennessee Football has had a prolific offense throughout Josh Heupel’s five-year tenure in Knoxville. The offense reached its highest ranking during the 2022 season, when fans remember Hendon Hooker airing it out to Biletnikoff Award winner Jalin Hyatt.
But as Heupel will be the first to say, it’s the run game that powers the pass game. Always has been, always will be.
“We’ve had a ton of success (throwing the ball),” Heupel said during an interview with Brooks Austin last week. “Quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight ends. Been explosive in the pass game. Been consistent. Had really good quarterback play. But sometimes (people) lose the fact that the bread and butter is running the football efficiently and effectively. You look over the five years we’ve been at Tennessee, lead the league in rushing over those five years. Two thousand yards rushing every year that we’ve been here.”
According to The Next Round on X, Tennessee’s 204.4 rushing yards per game over the last five years leads the entire SEC in that time frame. The Vols sit above Ole Miss (199.9 RYPG) and Arkansas (197.3 YPG) as the top three teams.
Vanderbilt (139.4 RYPG), South Carolina (128.2 RYPG), and Mississippi State (116.7 RYPG) are the bottom three in the league over the last five seasons.
Over the last five seasons, nobody in the SEC has run it better than Tennessee. The Vols lead the league at 204.4 rushing yards per game—but which team is best built to keep pounding the rock in 2026? pic.twitter.com/ML6cdRYSPu
Advertisement— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) July 22, 2026
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Tennessee Football has produced three straight seasons with a thousand-yard rusher. Jaylen Wright did it during the 2023 season, followed by Dylan Sampson during the 2024 season. ampson wound up setting Tennessee’s all-time single-season rushing mark at 1,491 yards and single-season rushing touchdowns mark at 22 during the 2025 season. Additionally, the Vols return former walk-on running back DeSean Bishop this season, who also ran for 1,000+ yards last year.
With Tennessee’s emphasis on the run game, combined with the talent in the room, the Vols’ success on the ground doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. Bishop returns to Tennessee this fall to try to add to his impressive total from last season, and then you’ve got elite five-star running back David Gabriel Georges making his true freshman debut during the 2027 season. It’s a great situation for the foreseeable future for a team that wants to be dominant on the ground.
UT Rushing Yards By Year
- 2021: 2,832 yards
- 2022: 2,593 yards
- 2023: 2,663 yards
- 2024: 2,942 yards
- 2025: 2,255 yards
