A new wrinkle.
Through two weeks of the 2024 season, Tennessee looks just a little bit different. Nico Iamaleava has taken the offense to a new level, and the Volunteers won last weekend thanks to suffocating defense.
But back to the offense. All the talk coming into the season was about Tennessee’s depth in the wide receiver room, but through the first couple of games it’s the tight ends that have stolen the show — at least in the end zone. Each of Tennessee’s top three tight ends have scored a touchdown so far. Ethan Davis got things going against Chattanooga, while Miles Kitselman and Holden Staes got in on the action against NC State.
More than just the numbers, the offense looks different. Josh Heupel and Joey Halzle have deployed multiple two tight end sets, which isn’t something we’re used to seeing.
“Playing with two tight ends, the wideouts were excited,” Halzle said this week. “They were in there, like you’re seeing Squirrel running around in 12 personnel. We told our guys, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to have to win different sometimes.’ Like, it’s not always just the bread and butter, exactly how you want to do it. What is this defensive structure giving us that allows us to do something that can take advantage of it? And the guys bought in and executed it at a high level.”
Tennessee completely remade their tight end room following last season after Jacob Warren and McCallan Castles exited. The Volunteers brought in Holden Staes and Miles Kitselman to round out the room with an emerging Ethan Davis. They now have a legitimate trio to work with, allowing for plenty of new looks and creativity.
“That position allows you to be versatile, allows you to be creative,” Halzle said. “You’ve got big guys that can run and catch, and, also, none of them are scared to block and go mix it up inside, so you can do stuff like that.
“It allows you to get big and force people to commit to the box and then open up your pass up game on the outside.”
It’s early, but it’s working. Redshirt freshman Nico Iamaleava is off to a white hot start, spreading the ball all over the field. Dylan Sampson is tearing it up on the ground as well, which is another benefit of having multiple tight ends on the field.
“We knew that was a major, major focus for us,” Halzle finished. “It was an area where we thought, if we could hit who we wanted to hit on there, that we could take this thing to another level.”
It’s going to be interesting to see how this evolves over the course of the season. We likely won’t see much variation against Kent State, but you can expect plenty of wrinkles when the Volunteers travel to Norman next weekend.