Josh Heupel explains how Tennessee’s defense was able to keep Spencer Rattler in check

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel knew something had to change. His defense couldn’t let Spencer Rattler have his way in the pocket again.

Less than 10 months ago, Rattler torched the Volunteers secondary for 438 yards and six touchdowns. It was a career night for him as South Carolina beat Tennessee, 63-38 last year.

With a chance for redemption, Heupel wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. But how could he get his team to slow Rattler down? Through the first four games, Rattler had completed 77.9 percent of his passes for seven touchdowns and two interceptions.

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The plan was simple: start by winning the battle up front.

“It’s going to be important for us to win the line of scrimmage every week,” Heupel said. “That’s where this football team has got to win. That’s where it starts.”

Last year, Rattler threw with plenty of time to spare. Tennessee couldn’t create enough pressure, only sacking him once. And it played a big role in the loss. But it was a different story on Saturday.

With this year’s game in Knoxville, Rattler had a much tougher night throwing the football. He finished 24-for-35 with 169 yards and an interception in a 41-20 loss.

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Heupel said the ability to be disruptive at the line of scrimmage changed the way Rattler played. It was something he challenged his group on doing all week and it worked out.

“Felt like we controlled the line of scrimmage for most of the night. Relentless, effort, energy, technique, fundamentals,” Heupel said. “Our d-line did a great job against the run, harassed the quarterback all night long. He was throwing out of a well, he was on the move. They did an unbelievable job.”

Rattler was able to hit some of his targets downfield, completing four passes for 15 or more yards. But for the most part, Tennessee applied pressure and forced him to make quicker decisions. As a result, the Vols had six sacks, four in the second quarter and two in the fourth.

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What made things tougher for Rattler was Tennessee taking Xavier Legette out of the picture for the most part. Legette had five catches for 50 yards. But he didn’t get a single target for nearly the entire second half.

“You saw a combination of match man, principal coverages, but you also some zone. They did a really good job of being in their spots. A year ago, we got hurt on some high low schemes. I thought we did a really good job of playing it from high to low. We matched out their match concepts extremely well. So I thought in zone and man, we were able to pass things up in a real good way.”

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