Jabari Small had just been ruled short on a touchdown run in which he clearly crossed the goal line. Tennessee football was clinging to a 24-21 third-quarter lead against the Florida Gators.

Josh Heupel went right back to Small on the next play, and he punched it in. The key to the score was a block Cooper Mays made on 415-pound defensive tackle Desmond Watson.

Throughout much of the game Saturday, Watson and Mays went head-to-head. Mays said it’s the second or third time in his playing career he’s gone against a lineman over 400 pounds.

“I like going against bigger guys,” he said in an interview with Off the Hook Sports on Sunday. “I’m more on the quick and athletic side and kind of can stun those guys a little bit and get them moving, and then I can win positionally.”

Mays mentioned Tim Amet, a teammate of his at Knoxville Catholic High School, as another player of that size he has faced. Amet is a former Tennessee football walk-on from 2020, the same year Mays signed with the Vols.

Against Florida, Mays had the second-highest PFF grade of any UT offensive lineman, just behind Darnell Wright. He noted that blocking such huge linemen is actually an advantage for people like him.

“You don’t (have) to worry about them jumping gaps or making you fall on your face,” he said. “You’re not going to miss them.”

Watson had two tackles for a loss the previous week for Florida as they beat the South Florida Bulls. Knowing the Vols needed a strong ground game to win, keeping him in check would be crucial.

Well, they held him to zero solo tackles, no hurries and no pass deflections. Meanwhile, they for 227 yards and three touchdowns, averaging nearly five and a half yards a carry. Mays noted the familiarity with Florida may have helped.

“As far as a team like Florida, I’ve played a lot of the guys multiple times before going in, so it wasn’t much of an issue,” he said.

That one touchdown run by Small, though, was a sign of a huge improvement for them over last year. Those plays weren’t a given then.

The most notable example of that was the Music City Bowl, when Jaylen Wright was stopped short on a 4th and goal against the Purdue Boilermakers. He appeared to be in, but it never should have been that close.

This year, though, they have been converting those consistently. Small, who had 19 carries for 90 yards along with three catches for 37 yards and two total touchdowns, has made a habit of doing that.

Perhaps it was because he gained 15 pounds in the offseason, but against the Pittsburgh Panthers, Small converted a key 3rd and 1 and two one-yard touchdown runs. Little plays like that are huge.

Of course, the offensive line getting a push has a lot to do with those plays as well. Fighting to win the line of scrimmage with his other co-linemen is what Mays says he enjoys most about the game.

“Being in a hard-fought battle, like in the trenches, with the guys around me, the four around me, I enjoy that more than anything in football,” he said. “Just being in there and just struggling with them and overcoming with them, that’s what I’m here for.”

They certainly won many of those hard-fought battles Saturday. Tennessee football outgained Florida 227 to 141 yards on the ground even though the two teams each recorded the exact same number of carries, 42.