Ten Points: Has the Vols' offense found its rhythm again?
Newcomer Aguilar looks good in Tennessee debut, as do rushing attack and offensive line
No. 24 Tennessee traveled to Atlanta on Saturday for the Aflac Kickoff and defeated Syracuse, 45-26. Here are 10 things that stood out.
1.) The passing game is just fine
If I’d told you back on April 15, when Nico Iamaleava entered the transfer portal following a very public breakup with UT coach Josh Heupel amid failed NIL negotiations, that Tennessee would score 45 points against Syracuse, what would your reaction have been?
It’s too soon to say that Tennessee has upgraded the quarterback position with Joey Aguilar (remember, Nico Iamaleava looked very impressive in the first couple of games last season, including a season-opening win against N.C. State). But I think it was very clear from Aguilar’s performance against Syracuse that the former Appalachian State (and UCLA) quarterback is not a downgrade.
Aguilar finished 16 of 28 for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns, including an electrifying 73-yard bomb to Braylon Staley. He wasn’t perfect, by any means; he was too high with some of his short and intermediate passes. But he seemed to settle in as the game progressed, before Heupel more or less took his foot off the gas a bit in the second half. His 73-yard dime to Staley on the post route was exactly the sort of deep throw that Iamaleava struggled with last year. Another play that stood out was Aguilar’s touchdown to Miles Kitselman. He had to escape the pocket, then made a late decision to put the ball into a tight window to Kitselman — again, the sort of play that Iamaleava struggled to make.
Perhaps most importantly — and, again, I’m hesitant to buy in completely at this early juncture, because I recall saying something similar about Iamaleava at the start of last season — Aguilar looked comfortable running Heupel’s offense. As everyone knows, Heupel’s offense depends on a quarterback being able to make quick, correct decisions — something that, so far, quarterbacks not named Hendon Hooker have struggled with during Heupel’s tenure in Knoxville. Tennessee will face defenses better than Syracuse this season — a lot of them, actually — but Aguilar looked like he’s ready to have a successful year on Rocky Top.
One under-appreciated part of Aguilar’s game is his ability and willingness to pull the ball down and pick up yards with his feet. He rushed for 34 yards on six carries, and showed absolutely no fear or indecisiveness in doing so.
We know from Aguilar’s time at Appalachian State that he can put up big numbers. He had 3,757 yards while throwing for 33 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 2023. The knock on him was his dip in production last year, when he threw for 23 touchdowns and 14 interceptions as a junior. Heupel’s QBs don’t throw many picks, and today Aguilar didn’t look like a QB that’s going to throw 14 picks this season.
2.) Receivers’ drops
No one charts all the drops, but there were several of them in Saturday’s game. Most of them weren’t on the numbers, though the would-be touchdown to Chris Brazzell on the slant route in the first half certainly was, but the rule in college football is if you’re a scholarship wideout at a P4 school, you better be able to catch passes that hit you on the numbers.
Tennessee’s wide receivers, as a group, were disappointing last year. Despite the off-season attrition, this year’s WR corps has plenty of weapons — between Staley, Brazzell, Matthews, and Kitselman at tight end. Clean up the drops and they should be okay. But the drops definitely have to be cleaned up.
3.) A powerful rushing attack
This might be the best running back depth Heupel has had at Tennessee. The fact that Star Thomas, the senior transfer from Duke, entered the game as the No. 3 RB on the depth chart and wound up being the closer, with 93 yards and a 7.7-yard average on 12 carries, says something. His No. 3 spot on the depth chart isn’t mismanagement, because Desean Bishop and Peyton Lewis are plenty legit in front of him. Any of these three can have solid games against anyone on the schedule, and they showed it against Syracuse.
In addition to Thomas’s 92 yards (and his 7-yard touchdown reception), Bishop finished with 82 yards and averaged 7.5 per carry, while Lewis finished with 38 and averaged 4.8. He didn’t get as many touches as he might’ve hoped for, but these guys are a near-perfect blend of power, speed and explosiveness. It’s going to be fun to watch them if the offensive line performs well.
Speaking of which…
4.) Outstanding O-line play
I’ll be interested in seeing the final performance grades assigned to Tennessee’s offensive line after Saturday’s game. At first glance, it looked like the best game by a UT O-line in the Heupel era.
Again, Tennessee will face better defenses than the one it saw Saturday in Atlanta, but against Syracuse, the offensive line was extremely good. The Vols rushed for 246 yards and averaged 6.2 yards per carry, and Aguilar was not sacked — wasn’t even pressured, really. The run blocking was good, and the pass protection was good.
And that was without highly-touted freshman right tackle David Sanders, who did not play after being shaken up in practice. The offensive line had to shift a bit to account for his absence, and still performed very well.
If this unit can stay healthy, it’s just another reason to think this Tennessee offense could put up numbers very similar to the one we saw in 2022. We have to wait until Georgia comes to Knoxville in two weeks to truly start judging this 2025 Tennessee team, but so far, so good.
5.) Slowing it down in the second half?
When Syracuse turned the ball over on the first possession of the second half and Tennessee quickly cashed in to make it a 38-14 game, I was greedily thinking how nice it would be to see the Vols score 50 — maybe even 60 — on opening day.
Instead, it was a 38-26 game late in the fourth quarter and was a bit too close for comfort. After the 7-play, 17-yard touchdown drive to start the half, Tennessee punted on three consecutive possessions — a 3-and-out, a 4-play drive, and a 4-play drive — before putting together the 9-play, 54-yard scoring drive to ice the game late.
How much of that was Heupel and offensive coordinator Joey Halzle being a little vanilla to avoid tipping their hand to future opponents, since the game was never really in jeopardy? I’m not sure, but we’ve seen that strategy from Heupel before.
6.) Red zone cash-outs
It’s no secret that one of Tennessee’s biggest offensive struggles with Iamaleava at the helm in 2024 was its inability to cash in on trips to the red zone. Between the 20s, the offense was pretty good. But things tended to bog down in the red zone, when opposing defenses had less field to defend.
In Saturday’s game, though, Tennessee’s offense was 5 of 5 in the red zone, with 4 touchdowns and only 1 field goal. The same, tired caveat applies — “better defenses await” — but red zone efficiency was a key focal point for the Vols in the offseason, and in their first test they appear to be much improved in that regard.
7.) Defense wasn’t that bad
There’s been a lot of nail-biting regarding Tennessee’s defensive performance against Syracuse.
Given the talent on that side of the ball, and the way Tim Banks’ unit performed in 2024, I’ll admit that I expected better. But sometimes stats are deceiving. Syracuse finished with 377 yards of offense. Steve Angeli completed 23 of 40 passes for 274 yards, and Yasin Willis had 91 rushing yards on 23 attempts. The ‘Cuse scored four touchdowns.
Keep in mind, however, that Tennessee sacked Angeli 5 times, hit him a bunch more, and forced 2 turnovers — one of them a scoop-and-score. Also, Syracuse averaged just 2.3 yards per carry.
Part of the reason Syracuse had so many yards was because the Orange offense was on the field a lot. That’s one of the drawbacks of Heupel’s offensive style. More offensive snaps = more opportunities for offensive production. It’s one of the reason Heupel wants to operate so quickly when he has the ball, but it can also lead to more snaps (and a more gassed defense) when the other team has the ball. It isn’t coincidence that the best numbers Banks’ defenses have put up at Tennessee came last year, when the offensive production was down a bit.
A few names that stood out defensively against Syracuse: Arion Carter, who had a team-high 9 tackles and a sack; Colton Hood, who broke up 3 passes and had the 22-yard scoop-and-score; and freshman Ty Redmond, who had 4 tackles and 2 passes broken up. I thought Redmond was one of the Vols’ best DBs in pass coverage, with a lot of his impact not showing up on the stat sheet.
8.) With that said…
There’s no doubt that Tennessee’s defense struggled at times from the midway point of the second quarter through the second half. Early in the game, the Vols were getting to Angeli over and over, generally making life miserable for the Syracuse quarterback. As the game went along, Tennessee was unable to get much pressure on him, and the zone coverage looked suspect. There were a few broken tackles, as well. One of the most concerning statistics: Syracuse was 3 of 4 on first downs, with one of them being a 4th and 10 play. Also concerning: Drives of 12 plays for 75 yards and 14 plays for 88 yards in the third quarter, both of them ending in touchdowns. Tennessee’s defense simply struggled to get off the field in the second half.
9.) Penalties galore
Of all the things Tennessee has to clean up, penalties may be at the top of the list. A lot of flags flying against a Heupel team isn’t new; the Vols have been one of the most-penalized teams in the SEC the past couple of seasons. But some of the 7 penalties for 65 yards in Saturday’s game were costly. Although Tennessee wound up scoring on both possessions, there were two touchdowns taken off the board by penalty (although, granted, the first half penalty for an illegal low block looked like a bad call).
10.) Beat Syracuse, good things happen
Tennessee is now 4-0 against Syracuse since 1966. That 1966 meeting was a Gator Bowl win over the Orange, 18-12. The Vols’ three appearances against Syracuse since then have all been season-openers, and the last two times UT beat the ‘Cuse, good things have followed.
In 1998, Tennessee opened the season in New York with an improbable, come-from-behind, 34-33 win over Syracuse after Jeff Hall’s last-second field goal. Of course we know how that season ended.
Three years later, the Vols opened the season with a 33-9 win over Syracuse at Neyland Stadium. That team won the SEC East and defeated Florida in The Swamp for the first time since the Nixon administration, and would have played for a national championship if not for a meltdown against LSU in the SEC Championship Game.