Tennessee opponent preview: Austin Peay

Tennessee’s home opener inside Neyland Stadium will take place on Sept. 8 as the Vols welcome in-state foe Austin Peay to Knoxville. It should be a final tune-up before the Vols open SEC play at Florida the next week.

Tennessee last faced Austin Peay in 2013, defeating the Governors 45-0 in the only meeting between the two schools. Since that game Austin Peay has moved from the Ohio Valley Conference into the Atlantic Sun.

2022 record: 7-4

Head Coach: Scotty Walden, third year, 17-11

SEASON OUTLOOK

Austin Peay was a team that leaned heavily on its defense in 2022 on its way to a second place finish in the Atlantic Sun.

The Governors led their conference in both scoring defense (22.7 ppg) and total defense (317.1 ypg). The total yardage mark defensively was light years better than anyone else in the A-Sun last year. Only one other team, conference champ Jacksonville State (389 ypg) held opponents under 400 yards per contest.

It was a different story on the offensive side of the ball where Austin Peay struggled to score consistently, at least relative to their league peers. The Governors averaged 31 ppg, which looks like a big number, but was fourth out of seven A-Sun programs.

The offense will have a chance to improve under quarterback Mike Dilello, a sixth year guy who is back after throwing for 2,447 yards last year with 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions while completing 61% of his throws.

Dilello is a bit of a journeyman who started his career at Florida Tech where he played for two seasons. He moved from there to MTSU where he was a reserve for two seasons.

The Governor’s receiving corps is a work in progress after losing significant production from last year’s roster. Losing leading receiver Dray McRay to Texas Tech as a transfer was a big blow, he led Austin Peay with 76 catches for 1,021 yards and nine touchdowns last fall. The Govs also lost James Burns ( 39 rec., 517 yards, 5 TDs) Kellen Stewart (12 rec., 181 yards) to transfer.

Trey Goodman (32 rec., 359 yards, 4 TDs) is the leading returning receiver for Dilello to work with. Austin Peay did add a couple of guys at wideout from the transfer portal.

The best news for Austin Peay on the offensive side of the football is that the tailback tandem of C.J. Evans (133 att., 641 yards, 6 TDs) and Jevon Jackson (95 att., 572 yards, 4 TDs) are both back from last year’s squad. That duo helped the Governor’s pile up 189 yards per game on the ground last fall.

The offense will be under the direction of a new coordinator this fall after Walden hired Jared Kaster from Houston Christian. Kaster previously worked for Kliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech.

As noted above, the Govs were salty on defense a year ago, but they’ll also have a new coordinator on that side of the ball. There’s a familiar face in that job though as linebacker’s coach J.J. Clark was promoted into the coordinator role by Walden.

Austin Peay’s defense also has some holes to patch that were left from some top performers from last year’s defense ‘portaling’ out of the program. The Govs lost two starting defensive backs; Demetries Ford and Shamari Simmons to Arizona State, both were all-conference players.

Starting linebacker and leading tackler from last year Antoine Williams (91 tackles, 12.5 TFLs) left for Western Carolina. The Govs also lost linebacker Joshua Rudolph (71 tackles) the second leading tackler on the team, to Indiana.

Even the special teams got dinged in the portal with all-conference punter Matt Rigney headed to Oregon.

Austin Peay went to the transfer portal themselves to try and plug some of those holes. Notable transfers added to the roster were safety Miles Richardson, a former starter at Wofford, cornerback Christian Lewis from Albany and linebacker Tyler Long from Norfolk State. Long racked up 184 career tackles in two years at Norfolk State.

The secondary also got a boost from former All-Ivy league safety Michael Rutten Jr.

FINAL OUTLOOK

Austin Peay’s situation heading into the 2023 season is a common one for FCS programs who have some success. They get absolutely plundered by bigger schools in the transfer portal.

The Governors probably ended last season feeling like they were well set up for following year only to end up scrambling to plug roster holes left by transfer portal casualties.

Austin Peay appears to have done a solid job of addressing those needs with its own work in the portal, but it’s still a different team than the one the probably thought they would have last December.

Offensively there’s ample experience at quarterback and tailback, but the receiving corps is a big question mark. Additionally, breaking in a new offensive coordinator always brings some uncertainty.

Defensively it looks like the transfer portal really left some sizable holes at linebacker and in the secondary. Austin Peay will absolutely have to hit on multiple defensive transfers if they’re going to repeat as the to defense in their conference.

For Tennessee this should amount to a glorified scrimmage and a final tune-up before the season gets started ‘for real’ one week later in Gainesville.

Austin Peay played one SEC opponent last fall, losing 34-0 at Alabama. The defense held up well in that contest, Bama just led 17-0 at the half. But the offense managed just 206 total yards and 12 first downs on the day.

This should be a low pressure opportunity for Josh Heupel & Co. to get one more start under Joe Milton’s belt, one more game as offensive coordinator for Joey Halzle and one last chance to iron out some wrinkles before ‘big boy’ SEC football gets underway.