Five Questions: Tennessee vs. Chattanooga (2024)

WILL TENNESSEE PLAY RELATIVELY CLEAN FOOTBALL?

Thursday provided two more examples of the danger associated with FBS teams playing FCS teams. North Dakota State —which always scares the devil out of FBS teams — took Colorado deep into the fourth quarter in Boulder, and Western Carolina took upcoming Tennessee opponent NC State deep into the fourth quarter in Raleigh. It's easy to say North Dakota State is an atypical FCS opponent, because the Bison are always really, really good. But Western Carolina is a solid but short-of-remarkable FCS team. It was about what Chattanooga was last season, as evidenced by the 52-50 banger between the Catamounts and Mocs in the Scenic City.

Chattanooga is a solid FCS team, but it's not North Dakota State. This shouldn't be a close game between the Vols and Mocs in the fourth quarter. If Tennessee plays relatively clean football, it won't be a close game in the fourth quarter.

But this is a season opener, and if the Vols mess around and play sloppy ball, Chattanooga has enough talent and experience to hang around for a while.

Tennessee doesn't need to be perfect to win this game. It just needs to put in a decent shift, and the outcome will take care of itself. But the better things go, the better everyone will feel heading into next week's neutral-site showdown against No. 24 NC State in Charlotte.

Don't commit a ton of turnovers. Don't get flagged for a bunch of penalties. Convert third-and-shorts on offense, and get off the field on third-and-medium and third-and-long defensively. Be solid on special teams. If the Vols do those things, they'll have a chance to put on a show in Iamaleava's first start at Neyland.

This game isn't about the result. It's about the performance. There's no such thing as a perfect football game, especially in a season opener. Just play relatively clean ball. That's not too much to ask.

WILL TENNESSEE OWNTHE LINE OF SCRIMMAGE?

Chattanooga tends to be a solid FCS program at the line of scrimmage. The Mocs routinely perform well against FCS opponents up front. They've put players in the NFL. They've won a ton of SoCon Defensive Players of the Year trophies the past two decades. They know what they're doing in those areas.

That shouldn't matter in this game. Will it? We'll see. But it shouldn't.

If Tennessee's defensive front is half as good as many of us —yours truly included — have suggested, it will dominate Chattanooga up front in this game. This is the first game of the season, so it wouldn't be shocking to see some misfits here and there lead to some big plays. That wouldn't be the end of the world. But the average Chattanooga running play should be stopped before it gets started. That line of scrimmage should crater, and there should be nowhere for the Mocs to run. That's exactly what the average play should look like. Chattanooga's offensive line has experience, and it has some good players, but the average weight is barely 290 pounds, and only one of them is taller than 6-foot-2.

Chattanooga's defensive line has much better size in the middle than on the edges, and at least two of those D-linemen have decent next-level potential, but it's not a group that should cause Tennessee's offensive line much trouble. The Vols have plenty of experience except at left tackle, and that left tackle (sophom*ore transfer Lance Heard from LSU) is a former five-star prospect and major NFL prospect. Tennessee's offensive line should generate plenty of room in the run game, especially as the game builds and the Vols' pace-and-space attack wears down the Mocs.

Don't be surprised if a few weird moments emerge in a season opener, but it's OK to be concerned if Tennessee doesn't completely own the line of scrimmage in this game. That's an absolute must.

WILL TENNESSEE BUILD SOME CONFIDENCE IN THE SECONDARY?

There was concern about this Tennessee secondary before junior Star nickel Jourdan Thomas suffered a season-ending knee injury early in camp. So, yeah, there's even more concern now.

It looks good —perhaps really, really good —for the Vols along the defensive front and at linebacker, with an exciting combination of experience and next-level talent in both groups. Then there's the secondary, which is nearly an all-new lineup from last season.

Fans for a few years have begged and pleaded for new blood in a secondary that had plenty of experience but little in the way of dynamics. Well … for better or worse, they have what they wanted now.

Tennessee's situation at corner is an interesting mix of exciting and terrifying, because those players are really talented but also really young. Things could turn out just fine there, but no one should feel great about that situation until that group proves itself on this stage. Then there's the safety position, where even the experienced options haven't consistently showed what they can do at this level, and the young players are young —which can be a really scary thing for players at the safety and nickel spots, considering the consequences of busts or bad angles in those spots. Big mistakes from safeties and nickels put points directly on the board, which is why Tennessee's staff and others are often so committed to veterans in those roles. Most coaches will sacrifice athleticism for reliability, and they'll pick safeties and nickels who know where they're supposed to be and when they're supposed to be there.

It'll be interesting to see what Tennessee does at the nickel spot, where third-year sophom*ore Christian Harrison (Rodney's son) is less dynamic but much older than touted freshman Boo Carter. It'll also be interesting to see just committed the Vols are to senior Will Brooks (a former walk-on) at one of the two starting safety spots.

Tennessee's defensive line should, in theory, prevent Chattanooga from getting a ton of opportunity to make splash plays through the air. But those opportunities still exist here and there in every game. The Vols would do well to shut down those plays and gain confidence in that new-look secondary.

WILL TENNESSEE SPLASH IT UP?

It's not fair to expect Tennessee's offense to consistently be as explosive and efficient as it was in 2022. That ways lies madness. Things were always going to be at least a little different in 2023, and that proved to the case. The Vols weren't bad offensively. Heupel offenses are never bad. But they weren't consistently good, either. They had their moments, but they also fell flat at times.

And, no, it wasn't just Joe Milton III. If Milton were such a bad quarterback, the New England Patriots wouldn't have drafted him and kept him on their 53-man roster heading into this season. But Milton in 2023 was nowhere near as good as Hendon Hooker was in 2022. The Vols weren't as good up front, either, without first-round tackle Darnell Wright. They weren't as good at receiver without Jalin Hyatt and Cedric Tillman. They weren't necessarily bad. They just weren't consistently good. They certainly weren't special.

The lack of splash plays was a big part of that downturn.

Heupel's offense, when well executed by good players who fit the system, is an absolute nightmare to defend unless you can consistently stop the run without stacking the box. If you can't do that, Tennessee-at-its-best will expose you in a hurry. Heupel is usually really good at setting up big-play shots, too. He'll run something a few times to get the defense in a rhythm, and then he'll wrong-foot them into a comical amount of space.

No coach and no system is perfect, but even the most basic film study of Heupel's offense from the most basic football watcher shows a coach who knows what he's doing and is good at it. Few offenses consistently make defenses look as lost as Heupel's does on a regular basis. Georgia has had the dynamic talent to plug the run without loading the box, and Georgia has had excellent players on the back end, and that combination gave even Hooker and Hyatt problems. Just about every other dud from the Vols in the Heupel era has been self-inflicted, though. It happened too often last season. The puzzle just didn't come together. It happens. Flush it and move forward.

It's a new season, and a new quarterback —billed as a generational talent —has an experienced offensive line and a bunch of dangerous weapons around him. This should work. This should look more like a Tennessee offense.

So … let's see that. Let's see more splash plays.

WILL TENNESSEE GET QUALITY REPSFOR PLAYERS WHO NEED THEM?

Tennessee in the Heupel era has done many things well. Getting reps to players deeper on the depth chart hasn't consistently been one of those things.

Now, there are qualifiers to that argument. Tennessee hasn't had much depth in the Heupel era, owing to the roster upheaval upon his arrival and the scholarship and recruiting restrictions from sins committed by a previous staff. You can't play depth you don't possess. You don't put guys on the field just to do it. There needs to be a purpose. Unless you're leading by four or five scores in the fourth quarter, reps should go to players whose experience will benefit you and them in the future. Everyone loves a feel-good story, but you get only a finite number of game reps in a season. They need to have a purpose.

In some cases, though, it could be argue that Tennessee has had legitimate opportunities to do that and just hasn't done it. The theory on this end is that Heupel, of all people, knows exactly how quickly offenses in this era can put points on the board, and that makes him prone to keeping the main guys on the field. "Paranoid" is a word with strong negative connotation, but it's not always the worst thing. Heupel knows he hasn't been blessed with much quality depth in his first few years at Tennessee, and he knows how quickly games can change. Rick Barnes has similar tendencies, for what it's worth, and that hasn't prevented him from being a future Hall of Fame coach. Some coaches are just like that.

But now Tennessee in many positions does seem to have more depth —arguably much more depth — than it's had the past few seasons. It's not an across-the-board thing. There are still some thin spots on this roster, as there are with every team in this sport, but the situation is better than it's been at this program in a while.

It'll be interesting to see if Tennessee really is as deep as it appears to be in some areas, and it'll be interesting to see whether that legitimately lengthens the rotation and changes the way Heupel and Co. administer the game.

There's no guarantee Tennessee just rolls Chattanooga for four quarters. It this game starts to look comfortable fairly early, though, we'll see how Heupel handles it. This team has more mouths to feed, and problems emerge when you don't feed them.