At 281.3 rushing yards per game, the No. 14 Tennessee Volunteers lead the SEC and rank fourth nationally behind the three service academies, posing a major challenge for the No. 1 Texas Longhorns on Saturday at Neyland Stadium as Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel seeks to protect his true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon.
The veer and shoot offense run by Heupel regularly utilizes wide splits by the wide receivers to force defenses to separate the secondary from the front six, but there’s plenty
of diversity in how the Tennessee offense has evolved, including frequent use of 12 personnel prior to the season-ending ACL injury sustained by No. 1 tight end Ethan Davis sustained int the Week 2 win against Georgia Tech.
“Early in the season, there was obviously a lot of more two tight end stuff, 12 personnel stuff, and man, it was very intricate stuff with both tight ends and inserts and different things and not to mention the quarterback using his legs,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said on Thursday.
Running backs DeSean Bishop and Duane Morris have both benefitted from that personnel grouping with Bishop averaging 7.2 yards per carry and scoring three of his four rushing touchdowns and Duane Morris averaging 14.9 yards per carry and scoring both of his rushing touchdowns from 12 personnel.
The first play from scrimmage against the Yellow Jackets flashed how Bishop’s patience pairs well with that personnel grouping in combination with more condensed splits that drew attention to the bubble screen action to the field, creating a 33-yard run.
But the frequency that Heupel called runs from 12 personnel decreased from 17 in Week 2 to 10 in Week 3, so the loss of Evans could lead to the Volunteers using 11 personnel more often against the Longhorns on Saturday, a grouping from which Bishop has a lower success rate with more negative plays.
Still, Heupel could turn back to the Diamond formation with two tight ends that produced a big touchdown run by Bishop from short yardage in the Georgia Tech win.
Even without the benefit of having Davis available, a key point of evolution for the Tennessee offense is in the variety of run schemes employed by Heupel.
“I give Coach Heupel a lot of credit — they’re very creative in the run game whether it’s the counters, the inserts, the same side counter stuff that they do. So they’ve got really good schemes, they’re committed to it,” Sarkisian said.
One of the reasons the veer and shoot has exploded in popularity across college football is because it punishes defense for where they are not. If Texas defensive coordinator tries to overload the box with an extra defender, Tennessee will happily throw the ball to the perimeter and force the Longhorn secondary to make tackles in space against the athletic Volunteer wide receivers. Against light boxes, Heupel will deploy his diverse run schemes, which includes read option plays for Brandon.
The supplement to the running game is the freshman quarterback’s scrambling ability on passing plays — on 15 scrambles, Brandon has gained 96 yards (6.4 yards per carry), which will put pressure on the integrity of the pass rush lanes for the Texas defensive line.
A consensus five-star prospect ranked as the No. 10 player nationally in the 2026 recruiting class, Brandon is just one piece of a talented Tennessee offense.
“They’ve got good players. They’ve got a good O-line. They’ve got an elite left tackle. They’ve got good runners, the tight end before he got injured was an elite player. So they have people to execute very intricate schemes and they believe in it,” Sarkisian said.
The tempo that Tennessee operates at offensively, ranking eighth nationally in seconds per play last season, will stress the Texas defense, especially the front. Fortunately for the Longhorns, there’s plenty of depth to deploy, even if star edge Colin Simmons isn’t available.
“We’re fortunate — we do have we do have a really good defensive front. We do have the depth in there and the ability to roll guys,” Sarkisian said.
The group’s versatility will also allow Muschamp to deploy a variety of fronts.
“What I say about our front, too, is we’ve got some really versatile guys, guys that can play, a shade or a nose, but at the same time they can be a three technique or a 4i. We’ve got edge players that can slide in and play five techniques or 4is, and so it allows us to be versatile with Coach Muschamp with the different fronts and packages that that he likes to use,” Sarkisian said.
For the Horns to slow down the Vols on the ground, Muschamp will need all his defensive linemen and may have to go deep into his bag of fronts and packages.
