Tennessee football appeared to be efficient on offense last season – though not explosive. The Vols averaged 35.7 points per game – tied for 12th in the nation.
However, that doesn’t tell the true story. You don’t really think the Vols, who had three scoreless first halves in SEC play, had the 12th best offense, do you?
The Vols averaged 62 points in non-conference games. That skews UT’s numbers. They averaged 25 points per game in SEC play, topping the 30-point mark just twice, which tells a more accurate story.
It took overtime for Tennessee football to get 23 points against Florida. They managed just 24 against Alabama, 17 against Georgia and 14 against Arkansas.
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If Tennessee wants to improve its scoring output, it must get back to what made the attack so dangerous in 2022 – up-tempo.
Tennessee doesn’t have the offensive talent to go at a meager pace and rack up big numbers against decent SEC teams. The Vols lost four offensive line starters, the top three receivers, the SEC Offensive Player of the Year in Dylan Sampson and quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who ranked 10th in the SEC in passing yards per game and was slightly above average at his position in the league.
UT doesn’t have a running back that will come close to matching Sampson’s 1,485 regular-season yards. The leading returning receiver had just 29 catches (Chris Brazzell). Five-star wideout Mike Matthews had just seven catches as a freshman last year.
Lance Heard, the former five-star LSU transfer who played more like a three-star last season, leads the offensive line this year. Two transfers, Wendell Moe from Arizona and Sam Pendleton from Notre Dame, join him up front..
It’s not a group that strikes fear in opponents.
Not one UT offensive player was on the media’s three-deep All-SEC team.
So if you want your offense to be better this year than last year, you’ve got to do something different. You have to do something unique.
You’ve got to reintroduce up-tempo.
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Up-tempo not only wears out opposing defenses, but it helps create mismatches and elicits confusion from opposing defenses.
That’s how, in 2022, Tennessee football scored 66 points against Missouri, 52 against Alabama, 40 against LSU and 38 against Florida.
But, you say, the Vols made the 12-team College Football Playoff with a pedestrian offense last year.
True, but you can’t expect a repeat. You can’t expect them to rank second in the SEC in total defense and third in points allowed. You can’t expect the pass rush to be better without James Pearce and Omarr Norman-Lott.
Besides, most SEC offenses UT will face this season are better than a year ago.
Another factor in improving the offensive numbers: Throw passes over the middle of the field. Hendon Hooker was adept at that. Joe Milton and Iamaleava were not.
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Coach Josh Heupel told me in May one thing he liked about transfer quarterback Joey Aguilar was his accuracy throwing over the middle.
If Aguilar can transfer that from practice to games, that will make the offense much more dangerous.
I don’t know how good Aguilar is going to be. He’s unlikely to rank among the SEC’s top eight passers in yards per game this year.
But Aguilar can’t be a significant drop-off from Iamaleava. If you rated Iamaleava a 7 on a 1-to-10 scale, UT’s quarterback must be no worse than a 6.
Last year, Iamaleava had nine touchdown passes and three picks in SEC games. He ranked 10th in the SEC in passing yards per game. UT didn’t win one SEC game last year because he played great.
What to like about Aguilar? He’s a tough cat, will stay in the pocket, get you six yards on third-and-5 and utilize the middle of the field.
So why hasn’t Tennessee football run at a break-neck pace since Hooker departed after the 2022 season? Maybe Milton and Iamaleava weren’t as quick at decision making. Or reading defenses. Or the receivers had trouble reading defenses and getting open.
Whatever the reason, Vols must solve the riddle. The offense has dipped considerably in SEC games since 2022. And to get back closer to those numbers, you better figure out how to go faster and attack the middle of the field.
(Jimmy Hyams is a 6-time winner of the Tennessee Sportswriter of the Year and a 2-time winner of the Tennessee Sportscaster of the Year. He is the only person to win both awards. He has covered Tennessee football and Tennessee sports for 40 years. You can email him at: jlhyams@comcast.net).
