Why Tennessee's game against UTEP might not be as 'easy' as Vols fans expect
The Tennessee Vols will host UTEP on Saturday in Neyland Stadium. It's the Vols' final regular season home game of the season. UTEP's head coach is Scotty Walden, a name that Tennessee fans may remember from last season. Walden was the head coach at Austin Peay — a team that the Vols played in 2023 […]
The Tennessee Vols will host UTEP on Saturday in Neyland Stadium. It's the Vols' final regular season home game of the season.
UTEP's head coach is Scotty Walden, a name that Tennessee fans may remember from last season.
Walden was the head coach at Austin Peay — a team that the Vols played in 2023 — last season before taking over at UTEP.
When Tennessee played Austin Peay in 2023, it was supposed to be a blowout.
Tennessee, after all, had a huge talent advantage over Austin Peay.
The game, however, was far from a blowout. Tennessee was never in danger of losing the game, but they had to essentially play their starters the entire game on their way to a 30-13 win.
After the game, Walden revealed that his team had a special game plan for the matchup against the Vols (which involved some unique formations and an interesting usage of timeouts).
"I think we frustrated them in a lot of ways," said Walden after giving the Vols hell for 60 minutes. "We want to be that FCS team that no Power 5 school wants to play. I know my AD doesn't want to hear that, he probably likes those checks. We want teams to think twice before they schedule the Governors because they won't get a team that is going to lay down. They are going to get a team that's going to fight. It's going to be uncommon, it's going to be cutting-edge. We did a lot of things to disrupt their tempo and disrupt their rhythm. Again, I'm just so proud of the kids. They bought into the game plan. I'll tell you one thing, I thought we did a great job as a coaching staff communicating the game plan because it was uncommon."
Walden's mentality hasn't changed one bit since taking over in El Paso as evidenced by a comment that he made before UTEP's season-opener against Nebraska.
"You're never going to see me prepare to lose a game ever," said Walden before UTEP's game against Nebraska. "We're not going to play to lose a game. We expect to win every game we play. And we're going to prepare to win every game."
"On the outside looking in, people look at this like 'oh it's a money game, just get out healthy', I actually despise comments like that with all of my heart and soul…we're going to expect to win," added Walden.
UTEP is 2-8 and they lost that game to Nebraska 40-7. But the Vols should still be ready for a fight. Walden knows how to game plan against Tennessee and I'd expect him to have a similar approach as he did when Austin Peay visited Knoxville last season.
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