The Day After — Tennessee beats South Carolina 41-20
Tennessee is 4-1 following a 41-20 win over South Carolina where the Vols dominated the line of scrimmage for their 12th straight win in Neyland Stadium and Josh Heupel’s 50th win as a Vol. We look back on the Vols victory with The Day After.
Hot and Not
HOT
James Pearce, Jr. — Wow. It’s been a while since a defensive end controlled a football game as much as it felt like Pearce did Saturday night. South Carolina has offensive line issues and Tennessee exploited them big time. The Vols had six sacks, all from the defensive line. Pearce had two sacks, and while only credited with one quarterback hurry, Pearce was around Spencer Rattler all night long. He also put the heat on Rattler and forced him to throw high and off target on Kamal Hadden’s pick six at the end of the first half
Cooper Mays — Welcome back Cooper Mays. Mays’ return showed up on the first drive of the game when he and Ollie Lane set a double team to help spring Jaylen Wright into the end zone on a 42 yard score. Tennessee’s tempo was better and the offensive line clearly communicated better and didn’t have any obvious busts. I’m shocked Mays could play 68 snaps in the game. He played every snap before the last four play series to end the game.
Wesley Walker — The safety had five tackles Saturday night and four of the five came on 3rd or 4th down to end drives. Walker also had a pass break up and a quarterback hurry. It was the safety’s best night as a Vol.
3rd/4th down defense — Walker’s numbers were just noted and it led the way for the entire defense who was terrific on possession downs. South Carolina only converted 4-of-19 3rd and 4th downs for first downs. Tennessee said all week they had to get off the field. They didn’t a year ago which led to the nightmare. Tennessee never let South Carolina get into a rhythm by getting them off the field on possession downs. They stopped them on third and short, medium and long all night.
NOT
Special teams — Jackson Ross continues to punt the ball extremely well. Charles Campbell has been a great transfer addition as the placekicker, but Tennessee’s special teams play was again less than stellar.
South Carolina executed a fake punt for a first down in the first half as Tennessee looked unprepared for the possibility. It’s the second time in three games that Beamer has pulled off a fake punt on Tennessee.
Tennessee had a kickoff go out of bounds. They had an illegal formation on a punt and they had a brilliant punt return for a touchdown by Dee Williams negated by a block in the back away from the return.
It wasn’t a great night in special teams play.
Defining moments
Squirrel’s catch — I loved Squirrel White’s candor in saying “I don’t know” when asked how he caught the 50 yard pass from Joe Milton to see up Tennessee’s second score of the night to regain the lead in the first quarter a lead they never gave up. South Carolina should have been called for pass interference on the play, and it’s unclear that White could even see the ball when he caught it.
Hadden to the house — Tennessee (and every other school) always talks about winning the ‘middle eight minutes’ of the football game. Tennessee did it to perfection Saturday night thanks to Kamal Hadden’s pick six. South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer stayed aggressive on 3rd and 22 from his own 19 yard line with less than a minute to go in the half and Tennessee made him pay as Pearce pressured Rattler not allowing him to set his feet and the ball sailed high and right into Hadden’s hands and he took it to the house.
4th and 1 stop in the third quarter — Trailing 31-17, South Carolina was trying to close it to a one score game when midway through the 3rd quarter Tennessee’s defense said no. On 2nd and 2, Tennessee stuffed Mario Anderson for a one yard gain. On 3rd and 1, they stuffed him for no gain and one 4th and 1 they stuffed Spencer Rattler for no gain forcing a turnover on downs and stopping South Carolina’s comeback attempt. The Gamecocks only crossed midfield one more time the rest of the game.
Jaylen Wright goes 42 yards to the house — Tennessee is all about starting fast and they did it again Saturday night. After forcing a punt, Tennessee took their first possession 94 yards on nine plays with Wright capping off the drive with a 42 yard sprint to the end zone. It was a perfect start for Tennessee and it was the 21st time in 31 games that Tennessee under Heupel has scored on their first possession.
Inside the numbers
6/5/1 —Number of sacks, pbu’s, and interceptions by Tim Banks defense. A complete performance against Spencer Rattler
0 — Number of negative yards by the running backs. Evidence of just how well the offensive line was moving the line of scrimmage.
21% — South Carolina’s conversion rate on 3rd and 4th down. A year ago they converted 10-of-13 3rd and 4th downs. Tennessee’s defense was terrific at getting off the field.
50 — Number of yards receiving for Xavier Legette who came in averaging 139 yards a game. Of those 50 yards, 32 came on a throw from the punter. Tennessee was terrific in taking Legette out of the game.
Gameball
It’s pretty simple for me, my game ball is going to the big uglies on both sides of the line of scrimmage.
Tennessee had six sacks, eight TFL’s and harassed Spencer Rattler all night. The defense had one bust in the run game. Aside from that Tennessee in the defensive trenches was really good with the defensive line recording 20 combined tackles.
On the other side of the ball, the offensive line gave up one sack (you could say that one was on Milton) and the running backs didn’t have a negative yard rushing as the Vols rushed for 238 yards and three touchdowns while averaging 6.0 yards a carry.
Biggest question/concern moving forward
The open date comes at a great time for this team as they are bruised and battered and need to get well.
Another week of recovery for Cooper Mays will be good. Tennessee was without JJ Crawford and Andrej Karic so their depth was a real concern Saturday.
But the biggest offensive question is adjusting to life without Bru McCoy who suffered a terrible ankle injury.
Chaz Nimrod and Kaleb Webb have to really grow up now. The extra week for those guys will be good. It also gives Tennessee a chance to adjust some things without having McCoy.
Defensively, it’s a a week for the young linebackers to catch their breath and improve on some things fundamentally as they will continue to be a bigger part of this defense in the back half of the season.
It’s also another week to get Milton’s knee healed. There were obviously no designed runs called for Milton Saturday night.
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