JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- For nearly five weeks, Jalen Hurd had to wait.
Then Tennessee's freshman running back had to watch a couple of his fellow Southeastern Conference first-year runners blow up in their respective bowl games.
Whatever Hurd had pent up for more than a month since watching most of the Volunteers' ugly win at Vanderbilt at the end of November, he let it out in the first half against the Iowa Hawkeyes on Friday, and it set the tone for Tennessee's 45-28 win in the TaxSlayer Bowl at EverBank Field.
"You could say that," he said after running for 122 yards and the first two touchdowns of Tennessee's first bowl win since the 2007 season. "The offensive line did a great job, and the receivers did a great job blocking downfield. They gave me great opportunities."
Tennessee's Jalen Hurd runs into the end zone to score during the TaxSlayer Bowl against Iowa, Friday, Jan. 2, 2015, in Jacksonville, Fla. Hurd made the most of them in returning to the hard-running form he showed in spurts during a freshman season in which the five-star recruit was hampered by injuries.
He broke around the outside for a 25-yard gain on Tennessee's second snap, and he ran through one tackler and bounced off a couple of others on a 29-yard touchdown run that made it 14-0 late in the first quarter.
His first seven carries went for 88 yards.
"Jalen's an individual who takes great pride in his performance, and he had that look in his eye, as did our entire football team," Tennessee coach Butch Jones said. "Jalen really set the temperament of the game for us, getting yards after contact, finishing runs. He just had that look in his eye of, 'Give me the ball, Coach.' He earned every yard that he got today
"I'm very proud of him, but he's a young man who's extremely competitive."
Asked for his take on Jones's comments about the look in his eye, Hurd replied, "Just determination, really. The whole team had that. We weren't going out of this game without a win."
Hurd recorded the first multi-touchdown game of his college career and the fourth 100-yard rushing game of his debut season, which ended with 899 yards.
His 122-yard game was the most by a Tennessee player in a bowl game since Travis Henry had 180 yards in a loss to Kansas State in the 2001 Cotton Bowl.
"Jalen did a great job of being elusive in space, of running hard and running behind his pads and making guys miss," Vols quarterback Josh Dobbs said. "It's always great to have Jalen in the backfield."
A less grueling schedule in December allowed for Hurd to heal from the wear and tear running backs take in the SEC.
It probably fueled him further, too, to watch Georgia's Nick Chubb and LSU's Leonard Fournette, the two All-SEC freshman team running backs listed ahead of Hurd, have big bowl games.
Chubb ran for 266 yards and two touchdowns in the Bulldogs' rout of Louisville in the Belk Bowl, and Fournette put up 143 yards, ran for two scores and returned a kickoff for a third in LSU's loss to Notre Dame in the Music City Bowl.
"I saw some big games by some freshmen, and I just wanted to show my part, too," Hurd said.
"They're great running backs. I've seen what they've done. (Running backs) Coach (Gillespie) has told me a little bit about them, but I really don't pay too much attention to that, just because I'm focused on my own stats and my own games to win."
With Friday's game in hand, Hurd got just six carries in the second half and missed the career-high rushing total of 125 yards he set in Tennessee's rally at South Carolina in early November.
If he's able to consistently run like he did Friday, though, that mark may not make it too many games into next season.
"That man, if you don't hit him just right, he's going to run right through you," Vols offensive tackle Jacob Gilliam said. "Of all the backs I've seen here, Rajion Neal and everybody, he's got the biggest upside I've seen. I'm real excited to see what that guy does in coming years at Tennessee."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.