Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel repeatedly stressed to his players that Monday’s Citrus Bowl against Iowa was not only the end of the 2023 season but a beginning to 2024.
Sophomore edge rusher James Pearce Jr. apparently took that message to heart.
In a playoff era when most bowls are often viewed as meaningless, the 6-foot-5, 242-pound sophomore put on a show as the No. 25 Volunteers clobbered the No. 20 Hawkeyes 35-0 inside Camping World Stadium. Pearce amassed four tackles and 1.5 sacks, forced a fumble and returned an interception 52 yards for a touchdown.
“Winning is always important to the future like it was here today,” Pearce said afterward.
Although Tennessee freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava won Citrus Bowl MVP by rushing for three touchdowns and throwing for another, Pearce was just as deserving. His sack and strip of Iowa quarterback Deacon Hill late in the third quarter resulted in a Dominic Bailey fumble recovery at Iowa’s 2-yard line and led to an Iamaleava 2-yard touchdown run moments later.
Then, in the first minute of the fourth quarter, Pearce dropped back from the line and snagged his first career interception and his first career score with the Vols.
“James has a great football future in front of him,” Heupel said. “He is a great player right now, but I really believe he has a chance to be extremely special. For him, it’s just continuing to grow in his understanding and his football IQ as we continue to move him around and put him in positions to win.”
To phrase Pearce’s 2023 season as a breakout year would be quite the understatement.
Pearce was a four-star prospect and ranked by 247Sports.com among the nation’s top 200 prospects in the 2022 signing cycle out of Chambers High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. He played in all 13 games as a freshman for the Orange Bowl champions but was relatively quiet, tallying five tackles and a pair of sacks.
There was nothing modest about his sophomore season, as Pearce collected two quick sacks in the opening 49-13 rout of Virginia in Nashville and never looked back. He finished the season with 28 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss, 10 sacks, 16 quarterback hurries, two forced fumbles and the interception for a score.
“James is a freak athlete,” Vols fifth-year senior safety Jaylen McCollough said. “He’s always doing stuff like that. If y’all go back and watch his high school film, James was all over the place. What he did wasn’t surprising.”
Said sophomore defensive lineman Tyre West: “James inspires me to go to work. That’s how I feel. When he’s out there making plays, it inspires me to go out there and get it.”
The excitement over Iamaleava’s successful starting debut may be matched over the next several months with what Tennessee has returning up front defensively. Pearce and Joshua Josephs should be the top two edge threats, and the rest of the front could have its deepest contingent of the Heupel era with the likes of Bailey, West, Omari Thomas, Elijah Simmons and Omarr Norman-Lott.
‘We have a lot of guys coming back who have played a lot of football,” Heupel said. “We have rotated a bunch of guys, and they have all had days where they were extremely violent and disruptive, got to the quarterback and played the run game extremely well.
“That group has got a chance if they do it the right way this offseason fundamentally and continue to change their bodies to be a game-changing unit. We need that from them.”
Such violence and disruption is expected to begin with Pearce, whose 16 quarterback hurries more than tripled Tennessee’s next-best player in that category. Pearce was the only Vol to earn a spot on the Associated Press All-Southeastern Conference first team, and he was the league’s highest-graded defensive end by Pro Football Focus.
“He is dynamic, and he has multiple moves to affect the quarterback, but there is still growth in some of those fundamentals,” Heupel said. “He can continue to grow in how he defends the run. He is doing that well, but there is still some growth there.
“He is a dynamic playmaker for us, and he has a really bright future in front of him.”
Mincey now leaving
Redshirt junior offensive lineman Gerald Mincey, who announced last month that he would be returning in 2024, has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Mincey began his career at Florida and has played the past two seasons for the Vols, starting six games at right tackle during this past regular season and starting at left tackle in the Citrus Bowl.
On Dec. 11, while thanking the Volunteer Club for an NIL opportunity, Mincey posted on social media, “Look forward to another great year and glad to be signed for the 2024 season.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.