Tennessee football has no shortage of offensive issues at the moment, but junior running back Dylan Sampson is not one of them.
Through the first half of the regular season, Sampson leads the SEC in rushing yards and touchdowns. In fact, Sampson’s barreling towards one Tennessee single-season record with a number of other records in his path.
Barring injury, Sampson is a near lock to become Tennessee’s single-season rushing touchdown leader. Gene McEver (1929) holds the current record with 18 and Sampson is already at 15 rushing touchdowns through just six regular season games. Now, Sampson totaled seven total touchdowns against Chattanooga and Kent State. That will make it hard to sustain his current pace but 20 rushing touchdowns feels like a very conservative estimation at the moment.
The single-season rushing touchdown record is a near lock and there are other single-season records that are possible for Sampson to break.
Through six games, Sampson’s rushed for 699 yards. Tennessee’s single-season rushing touchdown record is 1,464 held by Travis Stephens in 2001. Barring a deep run in the College Football Playoff, that seems unlikely. However, Sampson could easily be the Vols’ top rusher since Jalen Hurd in 2015 (1,288) or Montario Hardesty in 2009 (1,345).
Jay Graham’s record of 11 100-yard rushing performances in 1995 seems unbreakable but Sampson, who has five 100-yard performances in six games, could easily total eight-plus 100-yard performances for the second most in a single season in program history.
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Sampson was a good player in his first two seasons at Tennessee but has stepped into a completely new and elevated role this season. He rushed the ball 106 times last season and has already eclipsed that (118) through the first half of the season.
Tennessee has been a running back by committee team under Heupel. That was especially the case last season when Jaylen Wright led the team with 137 carries and while Sampson totaled 106 and Jabari Small totaled 95. But this season Sampson is the bell cow back with DeSean Bishop at just 48 carries and no other running back totaling over 25 carries.
“He’s always had great vision, great pace,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said of Sampson’s growth. “Obviously he’s got good long speed, but he’s really good between the tackles. I think his growth, continuing to grow in the understanding of what we’re doing. But physical strength, just his development in the middle of the football field, those runs between the tackles, just continues to make a bunch of plays for us.”
That’s what’s been, if not surprising, incredibly impressive about Sampson. He’s a 5-foot-11 running back that weight just 180 pounds when he got to Tennessee. Now he’s an every down runner who is effective between the tackles and can hold up with 20-plus carries a game.
The Vols need to get better offensive line play and their passing attack going in the back half of the season, but Sampson has been the one bright spot for a scuttling offense.
