After four seasons running Tennessee’s explosive offense in Knoxville, it’s no secret that UT head coach Josh Heupel wants a dependable run game to be his anchor point for what the Volunteers do offensively. Yes, it’s not easy to forget Hendon Hooker and Jalin Hyatt connecting for 1,000+ yards during the 2022 season, but Heupel has consistently said and shown that everything revolves around the run game first and foremost.
Tennessee has also shown to be adaptable with its run game. When you have a player like Dylan Sampson, someone who would eventually earn the title of the SEC Offensive Player of the Year in 2024, you feed him the rock and you feed him often. But when you’re able to split up the carries and find more balance, that’s perfectly acceptable, as well.
Through the first eight quarters of the 2025 season, Tennessee has used each of its three running backs in different ways. The Vols’ trio of backs with DeSean Bishop, Star Thomas, and Peyton Lewis was expected to be a high point for the Tennessee offense in 2025 and has looked the part, despite one game coming against an FCS school. Those three players have combined for 368 yards and six touchdowns on 54 carries against Syracuse and East Tennessee State.
But as good as it’s been and as good as it looks to be, they’ll face a much bigger test this weekend against Georgia. The Bulldogs always have a stout front seven under Kirby Smart, and Tennessee will need its ground game to keep things moving for any shot of taking down its rival foe on Saturday.
On3 Sports’ J.D. PicKell says that Saturday’s game against the Bulldogs will show just how “real” Tennessee’s trio of running backs really is.
“There’s different types of real, you know what I’m saying?” PicKell said on On3 Sports’ The Hard Count on YouTube on Thursday. “I can be a good basketball player in my YMCA league… But could I come off the bench for the Hawks tomorrow? No, that’s not the same thing. It’s real that I’m good at basketball, but it’s not real that I’m actually tier one good at basketball. That’s not the same real. That’s the question here for Tennessee. It’s not real, can you run the football at a high level? It’s – Can you run the football at a high level against Georgia, against Alabama in October, against Ohio State when you see them in the College Football Playoff again? That’s where I think the word ‘real’ becomes a little bit more of a discussion.”
Despite the reasons why people are trending toward Georgia in this game with the trench warfare element and all, PicKell says that this is the exact type of game that Josh Heupel and his staff have been building toward with both personnel and scheme.
“For this game against Georgia, now, this is what Josh Heupel, I believe, has been building to since he got to Tennessee,” PicKell said. “When Josh Heupel got there, it was, we can spread you out, we can go fast. We don’t have the dudes that you have in the trenches just yet, we’ll get there, but we’re going to win with scheme, with speed, with tempo. All those things until we get that trench warfare we need to have.”
A lot has been made of Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar and his role against the Bulldogs on Saturday – and rightfully so. He’s the signal caller, the quarterback, the leader of the offense, after all. But a Tennessee offense that doesn’t try to get the run game going is no Tennessee offense that we’ve seen so far. The Vols will benefit greatly from getting things going on the ground, no matter which of the three backs they’re using, to help get things turning and open up passing lanes in the back end of the field.
No. 15 Tennessee will host No. 6 Georgia in an SEC clash at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon in Knoxville, TN. Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for live, on-site coverage of the game coming up from Neyland Stadium.
Check out J.D. PicKell’s full clip from The Hard Count on On3 Sports’ YouTube channel below:
