Hendon Hooker turned in another masterful performance for Tennessee as the Vols continued their offensive fireworks in a big win over South Alabama, 60-14.

Tennessee took a huge step in program development Saturday night in coach Josh Heupel’s first season with a win against South Alabama and the Vols became bowl eligible with a game remaining.

Hooker finished 17-for-20 passing for 273 yards and 2 touchdowns, as he left the game after 3 quarters. Hooker also ran it in from 6-yards out to make it 49-7 with 7:29 left in the third quarter, as he finished with 7 carries for 21 yards. His productive backfield mates were Jaylen Wright and Jabari Small, who combined for 24 carries for 156 yards and 3 touchdowns.

The Vols were without RB Tiyon Evans, UT’s leading rusher, who has missed 4 games this season, including the past two. He did not play in the 41-17 loss to No. 1 Georgia last week and previously battled an ankle injury.

On the outside, Velus Jones Jr. added 6 catches for 103 yards, while Cedric Tillman added 5 catches for 100 yards, with 3 catches and 40 yards with a touchdown from Princeton Fant.

The Vols put up 35 points in the first half, the third-most they have this season, as they converted 4 possessions into 4 touchdowns with just a 7:48 time of possession, then Velus Jones Jr. returned a kickoff 96 yards in which he broke at least 4 tackles on the way to the end zone. That was the first Tennessee kickoff return for a TD since 2017.

With that return, Jones moved up to 2,851 kickoff return yards for his career, the most among active FBS players. He’s averaging an SEC-best 28.1 yards per return this season.

That continued a theme Tennessee has put up all season. It was the ninth time in 11 games when Tennessee has led after the first quarter, as the Vols did 14-0 this time. And it continued the stark contrast from previous seasons.

The Vols in the third quarter topped the 400-point mark for the season in Josh Heupel’s first year. They had 215 all of last season, 314 in 2019, 273 in 2018, 238 in 2017.

Six different Vols scored a touchdown, and Tennessee had 11 plays of at least 10 yards by early in the second half. While the time of possession was heavily weighted toward South Alabama, Tennessee didn’t punt until there was 8:26 to play.

Early in the second half, the Jaguars went 3 and out and punted after they recovered an onside kick. They couldn’t get much of a running game going as they had just 70 yards by early in the third quarter.

Hooker continued his pursuit of a pair of school records. He came into Saturday sixth nationally with a 190.01 passer efficiency rating, considerably better than the 163 rating held by Darryl Dickey from 1985. Hooker, who had 22 touchdown passes before Saturday with only 3 interceptions in 223 attempts, completed 68.6 percent of his passes. Erik Ainge set the current mark of 67 percent in 2006.