Tennessee players react to season opening blowout win
After a long offseason, Tennessee burst out of the gates on Saturday in a route of Chattanooga. Following the game, Nico Iamaleava talked about getting a season opening win.
“First of all, just thanks to all the fans. Hot day out there. They showed up early, Vol Was was electric. The stadium was juicy right from the beginning. Appreciate all of them coming out,” Josh Heupel said in postgame. “It has been a long time since we’ve been in there. So great to see them back again. Liked a lot of the things that we did in all three phases of the game. Defensively, I thought just the line of scrimmage did a really nice job, played good third-down defense, tight coverage for most of it. Really a lot of positives on that side of football.”
The quarterback finished the day throwing for over 300 yards passing with three touchdowns while completing 22-of-28 passes. Backups Gaston Moore and Jake Merklinger got the second half action, combining to go 11-for-16 for 100 yards.
Iamaleava set a school record for yards passing in a half with 314 yards on 22 completions. The redshirt freshman tossed three touchdowns. Catching two of them was senior Dont’e Thornton as he returned to the field from injury he suffered against Missouri last season.
Bru McCoy made his return to the game field on Saturday as well, catching six passes off seven targets for 89 yards. Newcomer Chris Brazzell II reeled in five passes on eight targets for 59 yards.
Junior tailback Dylan Sampson ran for 124 yards and three touchdowns, all in the first half. The leader on the offensive side was happy to perform at a high level after missing parts of fall camp.
Tennessee was able to play a big rotation of players against the Mocs in preparation for next weeks neutral site matchup with North Carolina State.
“Offensively, did some really good things early. Got to learn how to stay dialed in and finish a half, a quarter of the football game. But all in all good day,” Heupel contineud. “And obviously specialists did a really, really good job for most of the day.”
