Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel discusses hot start in first half vs Vanderbilt

The Tennessee Volunteers are 9-0 this season when leading at halftime. The Vols will hope that trend continues on Saturday night as they lead the Vanderbilt Commodores 21-0 at half. They’ve had a number of big plays that have broken the game open in Nashville and allowed them to jump out to an early lead. Heading into the locker room, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel discussed his thoughts on the team’s quick start with the SEC Network’s Cole Cubelic.

“Obviously, it got us a fast start offensively. Defensively, we’re playing really well right now. We’ve got to start back in, do some ordinary things on the offensive side of the ball. Sustain some drives here,” Heupel said.

He discussed the three different reserve offensive linemen that played in the first half for the Volunteers and how he planned to address that in the second half. “[Laughs]. We’ll see who’s coming out after halftime. Whoever’s in there, we’ve got to be physical, do a better job at the line of scrimmage, do a little bit better job in protection, and go make some plays,” Heupel said.

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Tennessee wasted no time in going for the deep shot early in this one. Backup quarterback Joe Milton connected with star receiver Jalin Hyatt on a 61-yard bomb less than a minute into the contest.

Hyatt is really close to breaking the Tennessee single season receiving yardage record of Robert Meachem (1,298 receiving yards). We’ll see if he decides to play in the bowl game or opt-out and officially declare for the 2023 NFL Draft. If he does choose to play in Tennessee’s bowl game, he’ll have an excellent opportunity to break the record.

The Volunteers throttled Vanderbilt 56-0 after it was all said and done on Saturday night. They did that with most of their backups in at several different positions, too. The victory gave the Vols their first 10-win regular season since 2003.