The opening third of the 2021 season has not been kind to the Missouri defense, and the task doesn’t get any easier this week. The Tigers rank No. 129 out of 130 FBS teams against the run and No. 117 in total defense. Saturday, Tennessee will bring to Columbia an offense that is “totally different than anything we’ve seen this season,” head coach Eli Drinkwitz said Tuesday.
The Volunteer offensive attack may be unique, but it should look familiar to the home fans. Tennessee coach Josh Heupel earned his way into the head coaching ranks after spending two seasons as the offensive coordinator at Missouri. When Barry Odom replaced Gary Pinkel as head coach in 2016, he hired Heupel, the former national championship-winning quarterback and Heisman Trophy runner-up as a quarterback at Oklahoma, away from Utah State. Heupel was tasked with turning around an offense that had finished second-to-last nationally in scoring in 2015.
Heupel completely revamped Missouri’s scheme, installing an offense that spread the field horizontally with its wide receiver splits and vertically using deep pass patterns and quarterback Drew Lock’s big arm. His playbook gave receivers options for how to run their routes based on the alignment of the player in coverage. Most striking was the pace. Heupel used a hurry-up tempo between plays to keep defenses on their heels, time of possession be damned. Missouri finished last nationally in time of possession in 2016 and second-to-last in 2017.
Success didn’t come overnight, but in Heupel’s second season, the offense found its groove. Missouri’s 2017 team finished eight nationally in total offense and 14th in passing. Lock’s 44 touchdown passes set an SEC record and led the country. After a 1-5 start to the season, Missouri finished the year by sweeping the second half of its schedule and returning to the postseason after a two-year absence.
“Had a huge part in the success that we had in taking over a program that had had a recent struggle in the previous year,” Heupel said Wednesday on the SEC coaches’ teleconference. “having to rebuild the culture really from the ground floor, in my opinion, and doing the things that we were able to do. Our second year, got hot at the end of the year and started playing good football, in particular on offense but really, collectively, found ways to win. … It was an awesome two years for myself and my family.”
The offensive turnaround he engineered at Missouri got Heupel the head coaching job at Central Florida. After he coached three years there, Tennessee athletics director Danny White, who had hired Heupel at UCF, brought him along to Knoxville to replace Jeremy Pruitt.
Heupel has kept the same spread and up-tempo elements of his offense. Saturday, he’ll try to beat Missouri with the same scheme that helped make Lock a national name.
No surprise, the aspect of Heupel’s attack that has drawn the most chatter from Missouri players and coaches this week has been its pace. Through its first four games, Tennessee has played faster than any other team in America, running nearly three plays per minute. Senior slot receiver Barrett Banister, whose first year at Missouri coincided with Heupel’s last, noted that type of tempo is a difficult thing to prepare for in one week.
“I really think the tempo aspect of it is very smart,” Banister said. “I mean, it’s hard to tell a defense to go get in shape in a week if they’re not already in shape. So if you can catch somebody out of shape, it’s a huge advantage. That’s not something that you can just draw up.”
Drinkwitz and defensive coordinator Steve Wilks expressed concern not so much with the physical fitness of their defensive players, but their ability to communicate the defensive calls and get everyone in position before the ball is snapped. Drinkwitz chalked up Missouri’s defensive issues at Boston College, when the Tigers gave up 275 yards on the ground, largely to communication. Having only a few seconds between snaps could exacerbate those issues.
“It starts with the communication and checks, making sure that all 11 people are on the same page, getting lined up,” Drinkwitz said. “Defense is about communication. You’ve got to see the call, get in position, make sure your eyes are on your keys and then react accordingly. When somebody’s snapping the ball three plays every 60 seconds, there’s a lot of opportunities for error, and they capitalize on those errors.”
Wilks said it’s virtually impossible to simulate Tennessee’s pace in practice. The defense has tried to simplify its terminology so it can get play calls in more quickly. But it’s not just the defensive side of the ball that bears responsibility for combating Tennessee’s tempo. Drinkwitz acknowledged that, as the head coach, he tries to take time of possession into account, to keep the offense on the field long enough that it gives the defense a breather, whether or not they’re facing a Boston College team that held the ball for at least five minutes on five different drives Saturday or Tennessee. However, he said clock control can’t come at the expense of scoring points.
“As the head coach, yeah, you’ve got to do a great job of protecting your defense and you’ve got to do a great job of trying to keep them off rhythm,” Drinkwitz said. “Time of possession isn't really a factor to (Tennessee). If you’re asking as the offensive coordinator, our job is to score points, and so we can’t let ourselves get out of rhythm because we’re trying to do something that we’re not normally doing and thus not scoring points. The name of the game is points."
The other challenge for Missouri’s defense Saturday will be a familiar one: stopping the run. Most Missouri fans likely remember Heupel’s offense for the gaudy passing numbers put up by Lock, but Banister said he remembers “getting yelled at for my run blocking” as much as anything.
Indeed, Heupel said running the ball is “really where everything starts for us.” Since 2016, a Heupel offense has never finished the season ranked worst than 38th nationally in rushing offense. Tennessee currently ranks No. 32nd at 204.3 yards per game. The Volunteers have run the ball on more than 60 percent of plays this year, and with quarterbacks Joe Milton and Hendon Hooker both dealing with injuries (Heupel has not revealed which will start against Missouri, or even if either will be available) that number could be higher on Saturday.
“Dating back to Missouri, our success on the ground game there was an integral part of our success in the pass game,” Heupel said. “It’s been true everywhere that we’ve been, and I think that our passing numbers at times have gotten a ton of exposure because there’s been a high success rate there, but I think the secret behind the sauce is really the run game for us.”
Tennessee’s rushing attack looks different than that of Boston College or Kentucky. Whereas those two teams often employed tight formations and let their talented offensive linemen clear room to run, the Vols create space with their formations. It’s been equally effective, as the one-two-tailback punch of Tiyon Evans and Jabari Small have both averaged better than 4.5 yards per carry this season.
“They try to spread you out more, and it’s a spacing game for them,” Wilks said. “... They get wide splits and really try to get you out in space and try to run the ball inside, inside zone, outside zone. So they do a great job of mixing things up and trying to keep you off balance.”
The key to slowing down that rushing game and keeping Heupel’s high-speed attack from hitting the accelerator? Getting stops on first down. Last week, Boston College averaged 6.3 yards on its first downs, including 7.2 yards per carry. Both of the two three-and-outs forced by Missouri came after holding the Eagles to three yards or less on first down, which allowed the Tigers to dial up pressure in likely passing situations.
If Missouri can force a few punts before Tennessee picks up a first down, it won’t be the Tigers’ defense that gets gassed trying to keep pace with Heupel’s play-calling, but the Vols’, which could spend the majority of the game on the field.
“We’ve got to do a great job of trying to get these guys behind the chains, and trying to create some negative plays on first and second down to give ourselves a chance,” said Wilks. “If they’re living in third and two, third and three, it’s going to be a long day.”
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