Tennessee Football: Recapping a dominant win over UConn

It doesn’t come as any surprise that the Vols won big on Saturday, but it was a surprise how they dominated on both sides of the ball. Three defensive turnover scores and a solid passing game from Milton capped off a fabulous homecoming week.

OFFENSE

Thirty-three seconds and 85 yards later in the first, and Jaylen Wright scores big on an 82-yarder to the house. UConn came prepared and stacked the box but it was no match for the talented junior Jaylen Wright and this rushing offense. Overall Tennessee dominated on the ground but that’s no surprise. The biggest surprise came with how complete Joe Milton’s games were, 11 for 14, 254 yards, and 2 touchdowns while contributing one on the ground IN THE FIRST HALF. Milton showed out and just in time as the Vols have a harsh two games to come when traveling to pass-happy No. 12 Missouri before coming home and playing dominant No. 1 Georgia at home. But we’re still in the hunt for the SEC East folks.

To round out the amazing offensive performance from the Vols and head coach Heupel, there are still some criticisms of his coaching style. With the Vols up by some many points at the half the logical decision is to kick off the Nico era and give him every second-half snap. Instead, Heupel pulled him after his lone touchdown and a few series to play Schuler and Moore. Though the unusual decision to not play Nico the whole second half, Heupel looks to be hitting his stride again and at the best time of the season. Tennessee goes into the final weeks with the 13th-best offense in the nation and only trailing LSU, GEORGIA, and OLE MISS in the SEC.

DEFENSE

With Hadden out there we’re some question marks for the Vols’ secondary, especially after their bad performance last weekend in Lexington. However, there were no question marks for this game as the secondary played flawlessly, minus a few deep passes and trick plays, but only allowed 221 yards in the air. The Vols also broke a school record with the most single-game defensive touchdowns.

The rush defense seems to only get better as the unit allowed only 35 rushing yards and Tennessee now leads the SEC in rush defense. The defensive line anchored the strong defensive day and though they didn’t get sacks, they were all over the place in the backfield with quarterback pressure and tackles for a loss.

With the Vols headed into their two hardest SEC games of the year, the defense is consistently playing the best in the conference and the offense seems to be waking up just at the right time. If Ole Miss can pull the upset on Georgia and the Vols keep playing at this level heading into Missouri, this squad is very much still in the SEC East race.