Well, while other programs played with their food across the country on Saturday, the Tennessee Volunteers certainly did not.
Tennessee rolled up a modern era program record 72 points against fellow East Tennessee program ETSU on Saturday afternoon inside Neyland Stadium, jumping out to a 31-0 lead early in the second quarter and never looking back.
Joey Aguilar was awesome again, going 23/31 for 288 yards with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions. Star Thomas led a busy backfield with 12 carries for 69
yards and 3 touchdowns. Chris Brazzell II had his best game as a Vol, catching 9 passes for 125 yards and 2 touchdowns. But, with this being a blowout, plenty more players got involved throughout the game.
Interestingly, Tennessee ran 100 plays on offense, and they threw 52 times with 48 runs. That’s quite the stark difference from their first game against Syracuse, where they had 28 passes to 40 rushes.
Tennessee didn’t wait long to strike first. The Vols went 82 yards on 8 plays and found the checkerboard when Aguilar slung a dart for 21 yards to the corner of the end zone to Brazzell. After a three and out, an oddly conservative run call on 3rd and 6 inside the 10 led to a short field goal for Tennessee.
Then, Boo Carter and the punt return game went to work. He had returns of 34 and 40 yards in the quarter, and Tennesse turned them into touchdown drives of 27 and 5 yards that were capped off by Thomas and Peyton Lewis bowling the ball into the end zone. 24-0 Tennessee.
After another punt, Aguilar connected with Mike Matthews on 13- and 19-yard gains to jump start another drive that Thomas ended with his third touchdown run. The Vols put the exclamation point on the half with a 53-yard touchdown through Aguilar to Matthews, who snared it right next ahead of a defender at the goal line.
Tennessee would cough it up and allow the Bucs to find the end zone when Aguilar fumbled inside Tennessee’s ten-yard line. One play later, Taharin Sudderth took a short pass and beat the defense to the pylon for a 5-yard touchdown.
The Vols would answer with one more touchdown in the half’s final seconds. Aguilar connected with Brazzell, Matthews, and Braylon Staley for first downs, and Thomas notched his final score of the game on a 7-yard run to send Tennessee to the locker room up 48-7.
The second half saw a number of starters get the rest of the game off, and a number of reserves got their opportunity. Jake Merklinger came in and threw a 33-yard pass to Brazzell that he scooped off the turn that was called a touchdown, but on review, it was reversed to the one-yard line. On the next play, Merklinger threw it to the corner, and Brazzell snared it for his second score of the game.
Daune Morris also closed out the scoring with a nifty and shifty run for 10 yards, cutting and leaving two defenders frozen and out of his path to the corner of the end zone.
The Vols finished with 717 total yards, while allowing just 216 for ETSU.
Next up is Georgia on 9/13 at 3:30 pm in Knoxville.
