Obviously, there was never a moment in which the Tennessee Football opener was in doubt Saturday. After all, the Vols beat the Chattanooga Mocs 69-3 and jumped out to a 45-0 lead on them, scoring on their first seven drives, six of which were touchdowns.
However, after struggling with their FCS opponent last year, the Austin Peay Governors, whom they beat 30-13, there was concern that this could be another ugly game. On the very first drive, that concern almost came to fruition in the red zone.
UT was moving the ball well, so Chattanooga head coach Rusty Wright made the brilliant move to call a timeout. That slowed things down, and even though the Vols got inside the 10-yard line, it just felt like their rhythm wasn’t the same.
Nico Iamaleava threw a shovel pass on a third down that didn’t convert, and that brought up a 4th and 1. Tennessee Football and Josh Heupel didn’t want a field goal on their opening drive of the season, but they didn’t want to create a situation in which they came up empty either.
Heupel called a timeout and regrouped. The Vols came out and converted on a six-yard run by Dylan Sampson, who then scored a touchdown on the very next play. Thanks to that conversion, UT got the momentum it needed to turnt his thing into a blowout.
On Chattanooga’s opening drive, the Vols forced a fumble to set up their next touchdown. That began their red-hot scoring streak that made everybody excited about Nico Iamaleava. Tennessee Football looked like the offense of 2022 under Josh Heupel.
Rocky Top still likely would have won, but things could’ve been uglier without that conversion. Last year’s ugly Austin Peay game set the tone for UT losing its first SEC game of the year the next week, at the Florida Gators. Converting that fourth down assured it wouldn’t happen in this one.
