Tennessee’s offense had to replace eight starters from a year ago, yet it leads the nation with 51.0 points per game heading into Saturday afternoon’s visit from Arkansas.
The Volunteers have scored at least 41 points every weekend in racing out to their 4-1 start that has been accompanied by a No. 12 national ranking, and they are sixth nationally with 536.4 yards per contest. Despite not having running back Dylan Sampson, center Cooper Mays, receiver Dont’e Thornton and quarterback Nico Iamaleava back from last year’s 10-3 team that advanced to the College Football Playoff, Tennessee has still managed to average 7.0 yards per snap.
Oh, and this current stretch marks the first time in program history that Tennessee has surpassed 40 points five straight times.
“We’ve done a good job, but we’ve also got a lot to improve on,” Vols third-year offensive coordinator and fifth-year quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle said Tuesday in a news conference. “There is just a lot on the field that we’re leaving in every ball game. In our last ball game, we had a chance to score some points early and maybe change the way it played out on the back end and didn’t.
“It was good to see the guys fight through that, but we need to finish drives and take advantage of the plays that are there.”
Tennessee, which hasn’t played since its 41-34 overtime win at Mississippi State on Sept. 27, only has one home game this month. The Vols and visiting Razorbacks are scheduled to vie at 4:15 on the SEC Network.
Arkansas last played on Sept. 27 as well, getting clobbered 56-13 by Notre Dame in Fayetteville to fall to 2-3. A day after that humbling, offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino was promoted to interim head coach to replace Sam Pittman, and Petrino fired defensive coordinator Travis Williams and promoted defensive line coach Chris Wilson to oversee that side of the ball.
Wilson was Oklahoma’s defensive ends coach during the 2005-09 seasons, when Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel was Oklahoma’s quarterbacks coach and Halzle was a Sooners quarterback.
“This kind of has the feel of the first game of the year,” Halzle said. “You have what they’ve done up to this point and what you’ll think they’ll do, but you also have to be prepared for anything. They’ve had two weeks, too, so they can get whatever they want installed and ready to go.
“Early in this ball game, we’ve got to call sound football plays and let our guys go play really fast.”
Tennessee’s stellar offensive play out of the gate can be attributed to multiple factors, most notably transfer quarterback Joey Aguilar, a dynamic receiver trio of Chris Brazzell II, Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley, and a line with four new starters. Redshirt junior Wendell Moe Jr., a transfer from Arizona, was scheduled to start the season at left guard but moved to right guard as part of an altered lineup when five-star freshman right tackle David Sanders Jr. was out with a shoulder injury.
The Vols have allowed only four sacks all season, ranking among the top 10 nationally in that category.
“I feel like we’re trusting each other more as an offensive line and as a team,” Moe said Tuesday. “We’re buying into the program and buying into what our coaches are teaching, and we’re just having a good time when we do it.”
Sampson was the Southeastern Conference’s offensive player of the year last season when he set Tennessee’s single-season rushing mark at 1,491 yards. The Vols led the SEC and ranked ninth in the country a year ago with 225.9 rushing yards per game, but their dip to 199.2 rushing yards a contest this season has been substantially countered by a passing attack averaging 337.2 yards per game.
Tennessee’s aerial attack ranks fourth nationally.
“We ran it so efficiently last year that you can see a lot people came into this year not wanting us to run the football,” Halzle said. “That’s why I think the passing game is playing off of that, and that’s why I think you have to have everything working.”
Aguilar is a primary reason a lot has been working so far for the Vols, and Halzle said the changes his quarterback can expect to see Saturday won’t be drastically different from what he’s experienced to this point.
“We get new looks every single week,” Halzle said. “He’s been great about adjusting on the sideline, whether that’s protection changes or scheme changes or whatever we’re doing. His blood pressure doesn’t rise. He’s a guy who’s not going to panic about it or stress about it.
“He’s going to work all week to get as prepared as possible.”
Second-half woes
The final three games of the Pittman era resulted in losses to Ole Miss, Memphis and Notre Dame.
In those contests, the Razorbacks were outscored in the second half by a combined 39-10.
“We need to keep the same energy and excitement and detail that we have in the first half,” Petrino said Monday in a news conference. “We’ve got to come out of the locker room with more energy. We’ve got to be able to run the ball with the same efficiency in the third quarter that we had in the first two quarters.”
Odds and ends
Saturday will mark the 24th consecutive sellout at Neyland Stadium. … Arkansas fifth-year senior quarterback Taylen Green leads the SEC in total offense with 367.8 yards per game. … Heupel will be seeking his 70th career win against only 24 losses. … Arkansas and Tennessee met annually from 1992-2002, but Saturday will mark just their fifth meeting in the last 17 years.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.