Furman’s coach was surprised by one thing with the Vols’ offense and made an interesting prediction for Tennessee’s game against Georgia Tech
Furman head coach Clay Hendrix thought one aspect of Tennessee’s offense was a “little surprising” on Saturday afternoon.
Tennessee true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon passed for 226 yards — including two 50-plus-yard touchdown passes to wide receiver Mike Matthews — in the Vols’ 56-9 win over Furman on Saturday.
Both of Brandon’s long touchdown passes came in the third quarter. For most of the first half, the Vols’ offense relied mostly on running the ball and high percentage short-to-intermediate throws.
Furman head coach Clay Hendrix said after the game that it was “a little surprising” that Tennessee didn’t throw the ball down the field more early in the game.
“Maybe it’s a little surprising we didn’t see a few more balls down the field in the first half,” said Hendrix. “But I think they were trying to put him probably in a position where he could be successful.”
“I think they just kind of took what they [were given],” added Hendrix. “They had a bunch of high percentage throws. … I think they had a good plan for him [with it being Brandon’s] first-time playing.”
Clay Hendrix thinks Tennessee will have a much different offensive game plan against Georgia Tech
Hendrix pointed out that Josh Heupel likely went with a vanilla offensive game plan on Saturday, and that he expects Tennessee’s offense to look different next week against Georgia Tech.
“I think the plan will be different next week when they go play (Georgia Tech),” said Hendrix. “Coach Heupel has been doing this a long time. He’s had a laundry list of good quarterbacks. And I think this one is going to be [good]. I felt like they put the other kid (George MacIntyre) in there and played him too, and maybe throw it a little bit and see what he could do and they did. So he’s got to coach his own team. And he’s got a great track record coaching them.”
It certainly felt like early in the game that Tennessee just wanted to run the ball, which Furman was prepared to defend.
“I think we got a really good front seven, and I thought we could create some issues for them running the football,” said Hendrix. “… There probably was a little bit of time early in the second quarter where they were maybe a little bit frustrated because in these games they’re expected to (do what they want to do offensively).”
When the Vols wanted to get explosive in the second half, however, they had no issues creating some fireworks.
Obviously we don’t know exactly what we’ll see from Tennessee’s offense next week against Georgia Tech, but I don’t think Heupel even came close to showing his hand with the game plan against Furman.
