Photos: Tennessee Athletics
45-24 on the road. Three scores. After the sloppy tape we just watched, that is the part that should make you feel good.
Faizon Brandon did not light up the stat sheet. Ten of twenty one. One hundred forty eight yards. Two touchdowns. Zero picks. Heupel said it after the game. The box score is not elite. The way he played the game is. No panic. No gift to Mendoza.
He scrambled for a fourth and two when he had to. He hit Ethan Davis from 25 on the first drive and Braylon Staley from 20 before half. The athleticism keeps jumping off the screen. What you are seeing is a staff that will not ask him to win it by himself.
They handed that job to the backs and the backs ate.
DeSean Bishop ran for 147 and two scores. First play from scrimmage he took it 33 yards and the whole building knew what kind of night it was going to be. Twenty carries. Career high. When they needed to put the game away they just kept giving it to him. Then Duane Morris ripped off 47 at the end instead of taking a knee. That room looks like a problem. Not one guy. A committee that can lean on you for 300 yards on the road. Six and a half a carry as a team. That is how you protect a freshman. That is how you leave Atlanta with a three score win when the passing game is only fine.
The offensive line was better than Furman and still not a finished product. Some drives they moved people and Bishop had a freeway. Some drives it looked like the same old inconsistency. That is the tape. Not a disaster. Not solved.
Defense is the same story with a better ending. This front looks a step up from last year. Tackling is the biggest jump. The line is making a mess in the backfield more often than we got used to. Dejuan Lane took one the other way for 41 yards. Mendoza threw two picks. Georgia Tech ran for 135 and Haynes still got 81, so nobody should crown anybody. They just look more physical than the group that used to give up the easy stuff.
Now the part that will get somebody beat in October.
Fourteen penalties. One hundred forty two yards. That is not Heupel football with a little slop on it. That is ridiculous. Flags on top of flags. You can play sloppy against an 0-2 Tech team that is still trying to figure out who it is and win by three touchdowns. You do that against Texas or Alabama and you are sitting in a quiet locker room.
That is the hangover. Happy about the quarterback’s poise. Happier about Bishop and that backfield. Happy that a sloppy road night still ended 45-24. Not happy about the flags. Heupel teams live with some of that. Last night was past the limit.
Georgia Tech is not a very good football team right now. That does not erase what Tennessee did. It also does not hide what they did to themselves. Clean that up and this 2-0 start means something. Leave it like this and it will cost a win down the road.
The good is real. The slop is louder. Fix the slop.