Josh Heupel: Vols 'had plans of having' Dylan Sampson in RB rotation at Florida
Dylan Sampson couldn’t avoid the end zone two weeks ago in Tennessee’s 49-13 win over Virginia. He started his sophomore season with four touchdowns in the opener, catching a touchdown pass and running for three more scores.
Saturday night at Florida, as the Gators were on their way to a 29-16 win over the struggling Vols, Sampson never saw the field.
Jaylen Wright carried 16 times for 63 yards and Jabari Small had seven attempts for 35 yards, but that’s as far as the running back rotation went. Tennessee finished with 29 rushes as a team — Joe Milton had five and wide receiver Bru McCoy had one — for 106 yards.
Dylan Sampson this season: 16 carries, 60 yards, 3 TDs
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel during his press conference on Monday confirmed that Sampson was available to play in the game, despite being “a little nicked up,” but the Vols never got to him.
“(We) had plans of having him in the rotation” Heupel said. “And I think on both sides of the football, the flow of the game in particular in the first half, we probably didn’t rotate the way we anticipated going into the football game and probably as much as we needed to.”
Tennessee scored first, jumping out to a 7-0 lead with 5:33 left in the first quarter after Milton threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Ramel Keyton to cap a six-play, 71-yard touchdown drive.
From there, though, Florida scored 26 unanswered points to take a 26-7 lead into halftime.
Sampson over the first two games of the season rushed 16 times for 60 yards and three touchdowns. Thirteen of the 16 attempts came against Virginia on September 2 at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, where he finished with 52 yards on the ground.
He caught a 9-yard touchdown pass on fourth down on Tennessee’s opening drive in the win, scored on a 3-yard run in he second quarter, scored on a 2-yard run in the third quarter and added another 3-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter.
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He had three carries for eight yards and one catch for nine yards against Austin Peay. He played 27 snaps against Virginia, just one less than Wright and two more than Small, seemingly making him second on the running back depth chart.
Up Next: No. 23 Tennessee vs. UTSA, Saturday, 4 p.m. ET, SEC Network
Sampson played just 10 snaps against Austin Peay, with Wright playing 30 snaps and Small getting 26. Wright was on the field for 41 of Tennessee’s 66 plays at Florida, with Small getting the other 25.
Tennessee kicked a field goal to start the second half at Florida and Milton threw a 55-yard touchdown pass to McCoy in the fourth. But the Vols could get no closer than 13 points after the offense stalled in the first half.
Heupel said Monday that the offense as a whole was “not as consistent” as the Vols need the group to be.
“I thought the wide receivers took a step in the right direction from how they performed the previous weeks,” Heupel said, “but collectively as a group, just not as consistent as you need be to go on the road, play a good team, and be able to move the football and ultimately score points.”
