KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Football is an extremely intricate sport. If one of 11 players don’t execute on any given play things can go awry.
But analyzing why a team wins or loses a football game if often very simple. The team with better line of scrimmage and quarterback play nearly always wins.
Tennessee’s offensive and defensive lines carried the day as the Vols outmuscled South Carolina 41-20 Saturday night inside a sold out Neyland Stadium.
The Vols’ offensive line finally got All-SEC center Cooper Mays back against the Gamecocks and the senior’s return led to the offensive line’s best performance of the season. Tennessee moved the ball on the ground all game long totaling 238 rushing yards on six yards a carry.
All three of Tennessee’s running backs averaged over five yards per carry with Jabari Small totaling 49 yards, Dylan Sampson rushing for 59 yards and Jaylen Wright totaling 123 yards including 63 yards on the game’s opening drive.
“Coop being back this week was absolutely critical for us to be our best,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said. “Ollie (Lane) did a good job sliding out to the left (guard), Gerald back at right (tackle). We were efficient. We weren’t perfect, but hit double teams, running backs did a good job running hard. We pushed the piles, plays that (were two yards) went for four. Those are big hidden yardages in the way that the game’s played at the end of a set of downs.”
That unit also gave quarterback Joe Milton III more time to throw than he’s had all season. South Carolina sacked Milton just once and it was a coverage sack.
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As good as Tennessee’s offensive line was, the story of the game was the dominance of the Vols’ defensive line. South Carolina’s offensive line is a known weakness but had patched things together adequately since a disastrous season opening performance against North Carolina.
Tennessee’s defensive line whipped the Gamecocks’ offensive front even more than Georgia did two weeks ago. South Carolina running back Mario Anderson broke a 75 yard touchdown run in the third quarter. Besides that, the Gamecocks totaled 57 yards on 26 carries.
Things didn’t go any better for South Carolina’s offensive front in pass protection. Tennessee’s pass rush had quarterback Spencer Rattler under duress all night, sacking him six times in the win.
“I thought the quarterback was uncomfortable all night long, had a hard time working through his entire progression,” Heupel said. “He did break contain a few times and make a few plays. But all in all, I just thought the line of scrimmage and what we did there changes the way the quarterback plays.”
Sophomore James Pearce Jr. totaled two of those sacks on Rattler and was in the backfield countless more times including on Kamal Hadden’s game changing pick six late in the first half.
Pearce has been nothing short of a revelation for Tennessee’s defense this season. After playing only sparingly as a freshman, the edge rusher is perhaps the Vols’ most important defensive player.
“Every time I looked up, I felt like he was affecting the way their quarterback was playing in the pocket and, just relentless, playing with length, fundamentally continuing to get better, has grown as a person outside of the game, which has allowed him to quickly accelerate inside of the game,” Heupel said. “Playing really well right now. His best football is still a long ways out in front of him too, which is a real compliment to him because he’s playing really well right now.”
Through five games, Pearce has already totaled five sacks this season. Byron Young led Tennessee with seven sacks a season ago and no other Vol recorded more than three sacks.
Tennessee has seven regular season games left and will face much better offensive lines than they’ve faced in September. But Pearce is providing Tennessee’s pass rush the boost it needed this season for its defense to take a serious step forward.
Time will tell if Pearce and Tennessee’s defensive line will remain this effective all season. But the dominant line of scrimmage performance propelled the Vols to revenge over South Carolina.
