Tennessee football turned back the clock on Saturday, and it worked out very well for the Vols in a 24-14 win over the Auburn Tigers.

The university honored General Robert Neyland on Saturday with the Smokey Grey uniforms with a leather helmet design, along with a retro interlocking “UT” at midfield. And Tennessee leaned on three very important aspects on Saturday to come away with the win: a strong defense, pristine special teams play, and an imposing rushing attack.

Tennessee ran for 237 yards on 49 attempts, with DeSean Bishop rolling up 220 of them to help the Vols pull ahead in the second half and hold on to pick up their first SEC win of the season.

And Bishop’s 220 yards ended a drought for Tennessee that stretched back well into the Jeremy Pruitt era. For the first time since 2019, a Tennessee player topped 200 rushing yards.

DeSean Bishop (220 yards) becomes first Tennessee player to rush for 200+ yards since 2019 in win over Auburn

According to the ESPN broadcast, the most recent Tennessee running back to reach that mark was Eric Gray against Vanderbilt back on November 30 2019. Gray had a monster game, turning 25 carries into 245 yards with three touchdowns in Tennessee’s 28-10 win over the Commodores.

It’s a bit of a surprise that no one has eclipsed that mark, given just how much Josh Heupel loves to lean on his rushing attack.

And lean on it is what he had to do on Saturday. Tennessee true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon struggled mightily, completing 3/8 passes for no yards and a brutal interception late in the first half that set up an Auburn go-ahead touchdown right before the half. George MacIntyre came in and went 8/10 passing for 86 yards to help give the offense a tad bit of juice.

But it was the effort of both Bishop and Tennessee’s recently criticized offensive line who stepped up to the plate and delivered, along with a defense who held Auburn to one scoring drive of 20 or more yards on the day.

Just how General Neyland would have drawn it up.