Jerry Mack confident run game will remain important in Tennessee’s offense

Tennessee Volunteers running backs coach Jerry Mack knows that his unit plays an incredibly important role in the team’s offense. He also expects that to continue in 2023.

After all, despite turnover at the offensive coordinator position, the running game is just as important to Tennessee’s offense as it ever has been before.

“Well, you know Coach [Joey] Halzle and Coach [Glen] Elarbee, they do a great job combining, collaborating, and always the foundation of what we do is going to be to run the football,” Jerry Mack said.

“Now, obviously, we’re in a position where we’ve got more bodies, more quality bodies I feel like, than we’ve ever had before. So, you know, we’re gonna always play our role whether that means we’re gonna carry the ball 50 times collectively as a group, whether that means sometimes it’s 20.”

As Jerry Mack explained, how much the running game is going to be used always comes down to the game itself. Some games require running backs to become threats in the passing game while others are going to call for a larger workload on the ground.

“But, our role from a protection standpoint, carrying the ball, like it’s kind of whatever the game dictates. There’s gonna be some games where we’re gonna have to carry the load a little bit more than others. It could be some situations throughout the course of the game that we end up running the football more than we normally would. So, that stuff is all dictated off the game situation.”

Josh Heupel on the team’s running backs

After the Volunteers’ second scrimmage, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel praised the team’s running backs, clearly happy with how the unit has been playing.

“I thought the running backs as a group did some really positive things. Dylan Sampson made some people miss, did a great job pressing double teams. Cam Seldon did a really nice job running the football, good job taking care of it. DeSean Bishop. There were a lot of really good things from that running back room in particular,” Heupel said.

“Watching the video will tell the true story. I did think in general they did a good job on the first and second level and created some space. All of those pieces play off of each other. The offensive line take on double teams good in their identifications.”