Nobody thought about it at the time. Tennessee Football was in a funk. Joe Milton III wasn’t the right fit for the offense. The Vols were just overlooking their opponent. That opponent changed up its entire scheme to shut down the Josh Heupel offense by making sure he wasn’t prepared for it.
A myriad of excuses flowed when the Austin Peay Governors visited the Vols in the second week of the 2023 season and put up a fight. UT won that game a measly 30-13, and the score was tied 6-6 with neither team having reached the end zone with under a minute to go in the first half.
One week before that, Milton had led Tennessee Football to a 49-13 win over the Virginia Cavaliers, and that followed his Orange Bowl MVP performance against the Clemson Tigers to end 2022. All concerns about his struggles in 2021 were alleviated…until that Austin Peay game brought it back up.
So what happened? Why did it reveal itself there?
Well, Austin Peay head coach Scotty Walden, now with the UTEP Miners, who will ironically visit the Vols later this year, was running a 3-3-5 base defense with co-defensive coordinators J.J. Clark and Chris Jones. It was the first time since Heupel had taken over at UT the Vols had faced a team with that base defense.
One week later, UT lost 29-16 on the road to the Florida Gators, but that was about Cooper Mays being injured against a still talented roster. The Vols’ next loss was against the Alabama Crimson Tide, but again, that was on the road to a national championship contender.
This 3-3-5 defense or variation of it didn’t reveal itself until UT visited the Missouri Tigers. It was a week before they would host the Georgia Bulldogs, and the SEC East was actually still in play entering that Saturday. Eli Drinkwitz, though, threw a completely different look at the Vols.
Drawing from Austin Peay, Drinkwitz employed a 3-2-6 defensive scheme, which led to a 36-7 dominating victory by Mizzou. From there, the message was clear. A variation of the 3-3-5 or 3-2-6 was the code to beat Heupel. Drinkwitz didn’t pull it out of anywhere. He employed it specifically against the Vols.
Since SEC play began, the Oklahoma Sooners, Arkansas Razorbacks and Florida all abandoned their base defenses to adopt more of a 3-3-5 or 3-2-6 scheme against Tennessee Football. Dylan Sampson admitted as much when he said the Hogs threw a look at them they hadn’t seen in practice.
While Florida employed it significantly less, they still used it a lot. Using it less is why Nico Iamaleava still had some deep shots available, and if he hits them, we’re talking about him re-entering the Heisman conversation this week. However, he’s rattled by what the Hogs and OU did to him.
Simply put, the formula is clear. This Heupel offense that was so unstoppable with Hendon Hooker at quarterback is now in its second quarterback post-Hooker and is continuing a trend since then of bizarrely horrible offensive performances. It’s the 3-3-5.
We should have seen this coming. A quick Twitter search on Tennessee Football hiring Heupel in 2021 will reveal that many UCF Knights fans thought this was an issue that was showing itself under Heupel. They cited back to back losses to the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, who ran it, as evidence.
That may be true, UCF still scored 26 and 31 against them. Those numbers are probably why teams didn’t think to employ it initially against the Vols. Now, though, it’s a clear-cut problem, one that gets exacerbated when the Vols are on the road.
Of course, there is a caveat. Iamaleava’s first start was against an Iowa Hawkeyes team that runs the 3-3-5, and that was in the Citrus Bowl. However, Kirk Ferentz uses it by making players work the whole field to win. He avoids bringing pressure. It seems as if sending an extra linebacker is crucial to stopping Rocky Top.
Now, the pressure is on Heupel to adjust. There is too much evidence against him and Tennessee Football, and more teams are going to employ it, even if it isn’t their base defense, when they face the Vols. At some point UT has to crack that code. Until then, they could be in serious trouble. Thank APSU for that.
