5-foot-10, 165-pound Squirrel White coming up big for Tennessee

South Carolina had scored 10 straight points in the first quarter Saturday night at Neyland Stadium and Tennessee needed an answer. So Josh Heupel sent Squirrel White deep and Joe Milton III unleashed a 50-yard bomb. 

What happened after that seemed to be news to White after the game.

“I couldn’t even see the ball,” White said.

With South Carolina defensive back Nick Emmanwori on his hip, White fell backward — helped by a push from Emmanwori’s left arm — at the 6-yard line as Milton’s pass came back down to earth.

White extended his arms down, with his hand near his right leg and blindly hauled in the pass as he hit the ground.

“It hit my hands,” White said, “and I just held onto it. It was a hell of a throw, though.”

It was a hell of a moment, too. Jabari Small scored two plays later to put the Vols back ahead 14-10, a lead they wouldn’t give up in the 41-20 win over the Gamecocks inside a sold-out Neyland Stadium. 

Squirrel White ‘just continues to get better’ for Vols

Milton, who finished 21 of 32 for 239 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions, couldn’t provide much of an explanation of White’s catch, either.

“Only thing I heard was the crowd,” Milton said. “That’s all I heard. Then I knew he caught it. I was just ready to call the next play.” 

Milton targeted White nine times during the game and White caught all nine. He finished the night with 104 yards receiving, averaging 11.4 yards per catch. 

“A lot of the night was one-on-one,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said after the game. “I told our skill players earlier that it was the line of scrimmage, to own it, and then out on the perimeter was going to be a one-on-one game. 

“You’ve got to be efficient; throwing it, catching it and winning it in those matchups. Squirrel, obviously, nine targets and nine catches, that’s a hell of a night by him.”

In the matchup against South Carolina’s Emmanwori, the 5-foot-10, 165-pound White was giving up five inches and and 55 pounds. But it didn’t matter on the play and has never seemed to matter in his football career.

“I feel like I’ve always been a physical guy,” White said during his postgame press conference, “even when growing up and since my high school career. Just taking the hit and stuff like that.”

Up Next: No. 22 Tennessee vs. Texas A&M, Oct. 14, Neyland Stadium

Heupel said Saturday night that he knew about White’s well-hidden physicality the first time he saw him in pads on Tennessee’s practice field. 

“There’s a lot of physical drills that we do out on the perimeter,” Heupel said. “Block destruction, tackling, perimeter drills. Whatever he (weighed) when he got to campus, it was all in the fight right from day one. He’s tough, he’s physical, he’s going to stick his nose on people … he’s been that way from the jump.”

White through five games lead Tennessee in both receptions (26) and yards (276), setting singe-game season highs in both categories with his nine catches for 104 yards Saturday night.

Tennessee will need White to keep playing bigger than his frame after redshirt senior Bru McCoy went down with a season-ending injury in the second quarter against South Carolina. 

“He’s a young player, relatively speaking,” Heupel said, “that just continues to get better and that’s extremely confident and comfortable out there. He operates extremely efficiently. 

“Joe has great confidence in him. He made a big time competitive play on the deep ball early in the first quarter. He gets us going. He just did an unbelievable job.”