Hayes: Home, sweet home. How Tennessee can shock No. 1 Georgia and create Playoff chaos
We’ve yet to see it, the one, “you’ve got to be kidding me” moment that turns the college football season sideways.
And wouldn’t you know it, it’s time to get Dolly involved.
So here comes Tennessee, battered and humiliated after a humbling loss at Missouri — the worst loss in coach Josh Heupel’s 3 seasons — and there’s not a better moment for the Playoff race to get a little wacky.
Against No. 1 Georgia.
“It’s the first time we have been back home for an SEC game inside Neyland Stadium in over a month,” Heupel said earlier this week. “Looking forward to our fans, seeing them there. We need a great atmosphere.”
Tennessee has won 14 straight at Neyland Stadium, where it has played harder and smarter under Heupel — and where it checked off a couple of huge wins in 2022 over Florida and Alabama.
Georgia, the last team to beat Tennessee in Knoxville in 2021, is the logical next step. The Tennessee defense is better than it has ever been under Heupel and will be the toughest defense Georgia has played all season.
And, of course, country music queen Dolly Parton has been hawking the game all week on social media — imploring Vols fans to show up and be loud. Because she will, too.
“My Mom will be excited about that one,” Heupel said.
No matter the pre-game hype, this is the game Tennessee has pointed to all season, anyway.
Not beating Florida in Gainesville for the first time in nearly 2 decades. Not beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa for about the same.
This season was about 2-time defending national champion Georgia, the measuring stick for a Tennessee program that arrived earlier than expected in 2022, and was good enough to reach the Playoff until a November game at Georgia.
Until the Dawgs utterly dismantled a magical Tennessee season in Year 2 under Heupel. They made All-American quarterback Hendon Hooker look average and Heupel’s vaunted Blur Ball offense pedestrian.
They led 24-3 in the 2nd quarter, and toyed with Tennessee the remainder of the game. The made it clear, play after play, that Tennessee wasn’t ready yet — no matter what it did to Florida and Alabama in earlier in the season.
It was Georgia, with that dominating defense and uncanny ability for offensive explosion plays at just the right spot, putting Tennessee in its place.
We’re here … and you’re there.
“Our guys understand who they are, what they are about and the way they’re going to play,” Heupel said. “It will be a great test for us.”
But the lift won’t be as difficult this time as it was in 2021 and 2022. Georgia is still uber-talented, and has won 27 straight games since losing the 2021 SEC Championship Game to Alabama.
But that loss is a framework of sorts for this game. It was Georgia away from Athens, and it was an Alabama defense that suffocated the Georgia run game and pressured quarterback Stetson Bennett IV into multiple mistakes.
Georgia averaged 3.6 yards per carry in that game and had 2 costly turnovers. And the defense that has carried Tennessee all season is elite at 2 things: Stopping the run, and forcing bad decisions with pressure.
That’s where’s last week’s loss to Missouri comes into play and shows the fragility of a team still finding a way to win big games in 2023. The Vols were No. 1 in the SEC in rush defense and sacks heading into last week’s game, and gave up 255 yards rushing and only forced 1 turnover.
That’s not the only shocking change away from Neyland Stadium. In nearly every defense metric — and more than a handful offensively — the Vols are a different team playing in front of their 105,000-plus fans.
- Scoring defense: 27.8 ppg. allowed on the road, 12.6 at home.
- Rushing yards allowed: 113.1 ypg. on the road, 77.6 at home.
- 3rd-down defense: 36% converted on the road, 29% at home.
- 20 of 33 sacks (60%), 47 of 82 tackles for loss (57.3%), and 11 of 14 turnovers forced have been at home.
Just as stark: The Tennessee offense averages 25 points per game on the road and 39 at home.
But this is Georgia. Or as Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said after last week’s throttling by the Dawgs: “We have signed 1 5-star (recruit), Georgia has 24.”
Elite players win games, and QB Carson Beck is playing better than he has all season. Georgia has finally found a consistent run game.
Star TE Brock Bowers is back from an ankle injury, and Dominic Lovett has given Beck another option in the receiving corps. Then there’s the Georgia defense, which gave up a couple of early scores to Ole Miss and responded with these 7 series to finish a 52-17 rout: Punt, INT, punt, punt, punt, FG, downs.
“They have really good players across the board,” Heupel said.
Heupel was then asked what it meant to have Dolly in town Saturday.
“It certainly adds pressure, absolutely, to our performance,” he said. “For Tennesseans, that’s one that everybody will enjoy seeing.”
That and some Tennessee-induced Playoff chaos.