Finally, it happened.
That might be a touch dramatic, but it feels like it’s been a while since Tennessee connected on a deep ball. Joey Aguilar and Braylon Staley quickly changed that on Saturday in Atlanta. It was a deep post that Aguilar knew he’d have one on one coverage with, and the Appalachian State transfer delivered a perfect strike. Staley tracked it over the middle of the field and hung on to the do the rest.
“Protection was good on that one,” Heupel said of the deep connection. “Braylon did a great job getting on top of the defense.”
It was one of only a couple of deep shots that Tennessee attempted on the day, but it took momentum right back in the game at a point where Syracuse had found its first touchdown of the afternoon. This element is something that has been missing from the Heupel offense since Hendon Hooker left for the NFL. Inconsistency has plagued the passing game, and Saturday was far from perfect, but it was a nice step in the right direction.
“Joey threw the deep ball well today,” Heupel continued. “There’s some things that we can be better at, him and our skill and some things on the protection piece too on a couple of them. But it was good to see us hit some down-the-field shots today. And it’s got to be a part of who we are as we move forward. But Braylon played well. I thought all the wide outs handled themselves extremely well today.”
Aguilar ended up throwing for 247 yards, completing 16 of 28 attempts. Heupel took his foot off the gas in the second half simply trying to drain the clock, or that number could have been much larger. It was good to see a quarterback that was confident in what he was seeing — and one that would act on it. It was also great to see a receiver making a play down the field for his quarterback.
Tennessee ran for nearly 250 yards on the ground, so opportunities like this are naturally going to open up as the safeties come down into the box. Hitting these shots consistently could bring Tennessee back to 2022 levels of production.
With a game coming up next weekend against ETSU, maybe we’ll see a few more of these shot plays as they attempt to get some kinks worked out ahead of Georgia in the SEC opener.
