If you didn’t know, now you know.
Tennessee dominated No. 24 NC State on Saturday night, but it didn’t exactly come as many thought. The entire country learned a little something this weekend — Tennessee has an elite front seven.
All the talk coming in was about Nico Iamaleava, and for good reason. But it was the defense that stole the show. Really from the second drive on, Tennessee just completely dominated up front. NC State had no answers on the offense line as overwhelming pressure engulfed the Wolfpack and never even gave them a chance.
NC State was limited to just 143 yards off offense. They ran for just 39 yards, completely overwhelmed by Tennessee’s talent and depth up front. The Volunteers put up a staggering 13 tackles for loss and came away with three sacks on Grayson McCall.
“Two weeks not allowing an opponent into the end zone,” Josh Heupel said after the game. “Just starts with defending the run game, violent, disruptive upfront. Being great in our fits and then applying pressure to the quarterback and being really sound in our coverage. Just, I really like the growth that we’ve had in the early part of the season. I like our personnel. There’s some things that we can continue to get better at, but they got great energy, camaraderie, they care about each other.
“We’re able to rotate. We got depth. We just got to keep growing. But really love what Coach Banks and our defensive staff and players have done.”
Josh Heupel said it all offseason long. The defensive front is the strength of this team and he expected that group to lead the program this fall. In their first true test of the season, they passed with flying colors.
“It looked like we were just getting knocked into the backfield a lot,” NC State coach Dave Doeren said. “And I said this all week, their defensive line was our biggest concern, particularly defensive tackles. And we think those guys are really good players and we just did not block them up front the way that we have to, to run the football. And so it was a combination of things and it’s impossible for me to tell you exactly what they were, but I watched the line of scrimmage all night and it wasn’t going our way. It was going their way.”
Omari Thomas, Bryson Eason, Tyre West, Omarr Norman-Lott, Dominic Bailey, Daevin Hobbs… the list just goes on and on for Rodney Garner up front. That’s all in addition to James Pearce, Joshua Josephs and Caleb Herring flying off of the edge.
Truly for the first time in a long time, Tennessee looks and feels like a top-tier SEC team. We know Josh Heupel is going to put up numbers offensively, but now if you’re going to pair a potentially top-end group on defense with that? These Volunteers will be a handful for anyone that comes across their schedule.