Tennessee will establish rushing attack in 2023, set up Joe Milton

Tennessee is hoping to build on an 11-win campaign from 2022, but it’ll take a few things happening to do so. First, the Volunteers need to establish a rushing attack that makes life easy on new starting quarterback Joe Milton. Then Milton needs to develop.

There’s no questioning the raw talent Milton has, but he has to put it together at quarterback. A dominant rushing attack never hurts a quarterback looking to settle in.

“That is the play for Tennessee. Like so much is built for them to challenge vertically and spread you out, but the running back room last year was the batteries for the offense,” On3’s JD PicKell said. “I mean they ran the football more often than they threw the football. They were balanced. It was run to set up the pass.”

Tennessee actually ran the ball 523 times last year, while throwing it 422. That’s a 55-45 run-pass split, though it’s worth noting that in college sacks and scrambles are both counted as rushing attempts, though they may have been called passing plays.

But the bottom line is that the Volunteers could get it done with the rushing attack in 2022.

“Dylan Sampson I was really impressed with last year, expect him to continue to keep this thing rolling in 2023,” PicKell said. “I think the running back room is solid. My question is are they able to have the same amount of success they had last year to challenge vertically? And those things kind of go hand in hand. If you can hit on the deep shots, that loosens up on what the safeties have to do and their responsibilities in run support.”

The one thing the Tennessee rushing attack will try to do is keep things balanced.

PicKell referenced some comments made about the Tennessee offense by Clark Brooks (@SEC_StatCat on Twitter) pointing out just how balanced Tennessee was with the run concepts it used.

“He was really impressed with the variations and the distribution of how Tennessee ran the football, meaning they were running power one way, they were running zone one way, and not just were they running those plays, but they were running them the same amount of time,” PicKell said.

“So typically, to break it down a little bit more in depth, teams have tendencies. For example, Michigan last year, they loved running power. They ran power, they ran power until you made them stop it. For Tennessee, they ran power a lot, they ran outside zone a lot, they ran inside zone a lot, they ran counter a lot. So what I’m saying is they schematically make it very difficult on you as a defense to settle into any tendency and expect just one thing for them to do.”

Can the Volunteers keep that going in 2023, boasting a rushing attack that will make life easier on Milton? That’s the bet for PicKell.

“They’re going to run the football well again this coming season, I fully believe that,” PicKell said. “I don’t think Joe Milton will actually be quite as involved as Hendon Hooker was, I don’t think he’ll ad-lib quite as much. But I do think you could see him on some short-yardage plays having designed quarterback power or read option whenever you get in the red zone and need a few yards.

“But to put it bluntly, Tennessee’s going to run the football really well again this coming season.”