The Tennessee Vols will open the 2025 season against the Syracuse Orange on Aug. 30 in Atlanta.

Tennessee will be looking to get back on track offensively after struggling to hit on splash plays over the last two seasons.

Syracuse, meanwhile, is making it a point this season to not get beaten over the top in the passing game.

“We’re just trying not to get beat deep,” said Syracuse head coach Fran Brown this week when asked about the outlook for his secondary. “That’s the goal — don’t get beat deep. Play with good eyes and come up and tackle.”

That’s the defensive approach that most teams have taken against the Vols the last two seasons. And it seems to work, though some of Tennessee’s struggles in the passing game can be attributed to missed connections with receivers (that’s on the quarterbacks and the receivers) or pass protection issues.

Vols offensive coordinator Joey Halzle said earlier this summer that being explosive against soft coverages has been the “entire focus of the offseason” for Tennessee’s offense.

“That’s been the entire focus of the offseason, is when people are playing really soft [coverages] and dropping eight in coverage, how do we keep being explosive in the passing game?” said Halzle in late July. “And that’s why, once again, we ran the ball the way we did last year. But it’s not going to be that we just say that’s par for the course now. The entire focus of this offseason has been how do we get our playmakers the ball in space with the ball in their hand where they can run and do what we’ve recruited them here to do.

“I feel like we’ve made some changes. We’ve done some things differently, but we’re never going to lose sight of who we are, which is to be extremely aggressive with how we call it, and to push the tempo, to make people play in space. But what are the one or two different little things we can do that help free people up. And when people are playing really soft and saying, “Ok, you’re not going over the top today’, what are we doing to do to attack that and not let them set the directive of the game.”

Brown’s comments weren’t directed at Tennessee; he was speaking about his secondary in general terms.

But his comments should still be viewed as a challenge by the Vols.

If the entire focus of the offseason has been on becoming more explosive against teams that don’t want to get beaten deep, then the season opener against Syracuse will be Tennessee’s first real opportunity to see how much it has improved in that area.

Tennessee Volunteers News

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