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Tennessee Volunteers Preview 2022: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Tennessee season with what you need to know and keys to the season.
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Tennessee Volunteers Preview
Head Coach: Josh Heupel, 2nd year at Tennessee, 7-6
5th year overall, 35-14. 2021 Preview
2021 Record: Overall: 7-6, Conference: 4-4
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Tennessee Top 10 Players | UT Schedule & Analysis
Tennessee Volunteers Preview 2022
Josh Heupel gave Tennessee fans almost exactly what they could’ve wanted out of a first season from a new head coach in a rebuilding run.
Yeah, everyone was looking for more than a 7-6 season. Yeah, it would’ve been nice to have been more competitive against Georgia and Alabama and (gulp) Florida, and losing to Ole Miss and that coach and dropping the bowl game to Purdue like that stunk, but …
The offense was great, and now the program has an identity to build around.
What Tennessee fans – and all fans of programs with a new head man – wanted to see was hope for the future. Fans want to be able to see the vision for what’s coming once all the right parts are there and everyone has settled in, and Heupel provided just that.
You want offense? You want fireworks? You want the type of team that’s going to scare the holy sh … stuff out of everyone? That’s exactly what the Tennessee attack did.
Now the rest of the SEC has been warned – you either get off the bus ready to put up at least 450 yards and 35 points, or you need not apply.
There are still going to be rocky spots on Rocky Top.
The offensive line has to pass protect better, the defense has to be stronger under the pressure of always being on the field, and the schedule with Alabama, and at LSU, and at Georgia, and Florida, and at Pitt isn’t going to be a breeze.
But it’s happening. The offense is going to give this team more of a realistic shot to do big things against the big teams this year and in the near future.
Tennessee is now in a position to be Tennessee again. There’s no reason why the program can’t take another big step forward under Heupel on the way to becoming a real, live SEC contender again.
That’s what 2021 did for the expectations, and that’s more than okay.
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Tennessee Top 10 Players | UT Schedule & Analysis
Tennessee Volunteers Preview 2022: Offense, Defense NEXT
Tennessee Volunteers Preview 2022: Offense
Well that worked. You wanted high-octane fun, lots of passing lots of yards, big plays, and a whole lot of pressure put on defenses? That’s exactly what the Tennessee offense provided in the first year under head coach Josh Heupel.
The Vols were ninth in the nation overall averaging 475 yards per game, averaged 39 points per outing, and they didn’t even have everything in the right place in the first year of the the adjustment.
Granted, there were a whole lot of big numbers put up against a whole lot of mediocre teams – the O failed to get to 30 against Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Florida – but it was 7-1 when it got to 35 points or more, and 0-5 when it didn’t.
This year’s attack should hit 35 on a consistent basis, starting with …
Is Hendon Hooker the most underappreciated quarterback in college football? All the guy does is produce – whether it was at Virginia Tech or last year at Tennessee – and yet he somehow didn’t get the gig to start last season, stepped in for Joe Milton, and threw for close to 3,000 yards with 31 touchdowns and three picks. He’s great, and Milton is a solid No. 2.
Leading receiver Cedric Tillman is back after catching 64 passes for 1,081 yards and 12 scores, Bru McCoy is coming in from USC to be a part of the fun, and tight ends Princeton Fant and Jacob Warren are solid midrange targets. Hooker won’t have any problems spreading the ball around. However …
The offensive line needs to be able to keep Hooker from getting popped. The Vol front five was terrific for the running game, but it allowed a whopping 44 sacks – 3.4 per game; the most in the SEC.
There’s plenty of talent up front with Darnell Wright a pro prospect at right tackle, Cooper Mays a solid center, and with great size at the guard spots. If Jeremiah Crawford can hold his own at left tackle, the line will be solid.
RB Tiyon Evans left for Louisville, but Hooker was the team’s second leading rusher, and junior Jabari Small led the team with 792 yards and nine touchdowns and Jaylen Wright is a good-looking back who ran for 409 yards and four scores.
Tennessee Volunteers Preview 2022: Defense
The offense really, really worked. It was fun, it was exciting, and it put a whole heck of a lot of stress on the defense that had to sit on the field for around 35 minutes a game thanks to the warp speed style of the other side.
There were some rough spots.
To be fair, everyone had to crank up the production to keep up the pace, but Purdue might have just come up with another 37-yard pass play as you’re reading this, and it allowed 500 overall yards or more in five of the last ten games and 396 or more nine times.
There’s plenty of experience and several good parts to get excited about, but the job of the defensive side is to hold on for dear life and let the offense do the work.
It might have been tough at times, but the defense was phenomenal at getting into the backfield. The Vols were seventh in the nation in tackles for loss per game, and the two main men are back with DE Byron Young and LB Jeremy Banks both coming up with 11.5 TFLs.
There’s great size up front with the 320-pound Omari Thomas on the nose and 290-pound LaTrell Bumphus a veteran next to him. It’ll be up to Young and Tyler Baron to be the once to get behind the line.
Banks tied for the team lead with 5.5 sacks and led the way with 128 tackles. Combined with 84-tackle Aaron Beasley in the middle, and the Vols are good in the 4-2-5 alignment – there’s plenty of depth to rotate in.
The secondary has a good hitter in free safety Trevon Flowers, but Theo Jackson will be missed as a broken up pass machine at the Star position.
Strong safety Jaylen McCollough led the team with three picks along with 49 tackles, and the corners should be fine with help coming in from the transfer portal.
Tennessee 2022 Preview
Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Tennessee Top 10 Players | UT Schedule & Analysis
Tennessee Volunteers: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats NEXT
Tennessee Volunteers: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats
Tennessee Volunteers: Key To The 2022 Offense
Run the ball effectively against the better teams.
The Vols will probably be last in the nation in time of possession again – partly by design – and the strong line will likely still have problems in pass protection. However, the difference between the offense going from fantastic to truly unstoppable might be the ability to grind it out a bit against the better defenses.
Granted, no one ran well on Alabama and Georgia last season, but those were the two games Tennessee failed to hit the 100-yard mark and averaged under 2.5 yards per carry. It’s that last part that matters.
The offense doesn’t have to rip off over 200 yards, but the team went 6-2 when it did.
The difference in the losses when it hit two bills were the yards per carry, failing to get to five yards per pop in the losses to Purdue and Ole Miss and rolling for over five when the ground attack worked against the FBS teams.
Tennessee was 6-0 last year when running for five yards per carry and is 9-1 over the last three seasons when it was able to do that.
Tennessee Volunteers: Key To The 2022 Defense
Third down stops – the Tennessee defense needs a lot more of them.
The Vols will always get hammered in the time of possession battle thanks to the style of the offense, but the defense has to do whatever it can to get that high-speed attack back on the field as much as possible.
The D was the second-worst in the SEC at coming up with third down stops.
There were times when it did a good job – beating Vanderbilt, South Alabama, Tennessee Tech, and Bowling Green when allowing then to hit fewer than 30% of their chances – but it allowed teams to convert 40% of the time or more eight times.
On the plus side, the defense was better at this than it was in 2020, but get to around 35% on a regular basis and everything will be a whole lot easier.
Tennessee Volunteers: Key Player To The 2022 Season
RB Jabari Small, Jr.
Can he keep up the momentum from a hit end of the season?
He was a good part of a rotation at running back all year long, but he took off for 103 yards in the regular season finale against Vanderbilt and hit Purdue for a season-high 180 yards on 26 carries.
The offense will be about Hendon Hooker winging the ball around the yards, but if Small can become even more of a workhorse – and if he can keep averaging close to six yards per carry – he’ll be the perfect balance for the attack.
Tennessee Volunteers: Key Transfer
WR Bru McCoy, Soph.
McCoy was a superstar recruit who signed with USC, left for Texas, came back to USC, was suspended from the team after an alleged off-the-field incident, and now he’s looking to start over at Tennessee.
Talent-wise he’s got everything. 6-4 size, deep speed, and the NFL skill set to go off in the Tennessee attack. He caught 21 passes for 236 yards and two touchdowns in his six games at USC.
If everything shakes out and he’s able to go, he should be the No. 2 target next to Cedric Tillman on the outside.
Tennessee Key Game To The 2022 Season
Florida, Sept. 24
Tennessee losing to Alabama was hardly anything to get into a twist over, and struggling against Georgia was totally forgivable.
As grouchy as the base might have been, losing to last year’s Ole Miss team was acceptable, and dropping the date to eventual ACC champion Pitt was more than okay.
But getting dropped by a mediocre Florida team by 24 – that hurt.
The Vols have lost five in a row to the Gators and 16 of the last 17. This year’s it’s the SEC opener and it’s in Knoxville – and it’s really, really big.
Win, and they’ll be at worst 3-1 going into October – they have to go to Pitt – and possibly 4-0. Lose, and with at LSU, Alabama, Kentucky, at Georgia the next four games on the SEC schedule, it’s uh oh time.
Tennessee Volunteers: 2021 Fun Stats
– 1st Quarter Scoring: Tennessee 190 – Opponents 51
– Fumbles: Tennessee 20 (lost 10) – Opponents 9 (lost 3)
– Time of Possession: Opponents 35:30 – Tennessee 24:30
Tennessee 2022 Preview
Offense, Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Tennessee Top 10 Players | UT Schedule & Analysis
Tennessee Volunteers Season Prediction, What Will Happen NEXT
Tennessee Volunteers Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Tennessee beat the teams it was supposed to beat.
For the most part, it lost to the teams it was supposed to lose to, and it pulled off a huge 50/50 win at Kentucky.
Can this year’s team win some of those games against the high-end programs?
The offense should be even sharper and just as dangerous with a year to have it all figured out, and the defense has more than enough experience and depth to hope for just a wee bit more production. Throw in the returning kickers and a coaching staff that settled in, and there’s reasonable hope for something big to come.
However, the schedule might have something to say about this.
Set The Tennessee Volunteers Regular Season Win Total At … 8
Ball State, Akron, UT Martin, Missouri, at Vanderbilt. Tennessee has to go 5-0 against that bunch, or 4-1 at worst if Mizzou has a good day.
At Pitt, Kentucky, at South Carolina. Optimistic Tennessee fans will expect 3-0 against that, realistic ones will hope for 2-1, but 1-2 is possible and 0-3 would be disastrous.
Beating Florida would be massive, shocking Alabama at home and/or at Georgia would season-defining, and taking out LSU on the road would be gigantic. 2-2 makes this a big year, 1-3 is more likely.
For all the excitement and all the big expectations, 7-6 with a bowl will will be disappointing, anything less would be a huge letdown, eight wins would be a great regular season, and anything more than that would be terrific.
Remember, this is still a building program that has to deal with a tough slate. Give it one more year, and then the double-digit win seasons should come.
Tennessee 2022 Preview
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Tennessee Top 10 Players | UT Schedule & Analysis
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