Tennessee fans noticed last weekend in the Vols’ season-opening win over Furman that the offense wasn’t as “up-tempo” as we’ve seen at times in the past.

There are several reasons for that.

For one, there was no need for it against an overmatched Furman team.

Secondly, with a true freshman quarterback in Faizon Brandon and a center in Nic Moore both making their first career starts, it was probably wise to ease into things instead of going breakneck speed from the jump.

There was also no need to put more than necessary on film ahead of a big road game against Georgia Tech.

What should fans expect from Tennessee’s offense against Georgia Tech?

VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs joined 104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will on Friday and he was asked whether Tennessee’s offense will use more tempo against Georgia Tech.

Hubbs noted that it’s essentially impossible for Tennessee’s offense to move as fast as it did in 2021 and 2022 because of rule changes that came to the sport a couple of years ago.

“I think they’re going to pick their spots and they’ll play fast in spots,” explained Hubbs. “But they’re never gonna play as fast as they played in 2021 and 2022. I don’t think the rules really allow that the way that you have seen in the past. Because if you go out of bounds on your sideline, if the ball goes out of bounds, whether you sub or not, the official is standing over the ball to allow a (defensive) substitution. And obviously on an incomplete pass, there’s a substitution. There are some things that prevent you from going as fast as you used to go. That’s why we’ve seen some of the alterations that we’ve seen the last couple of years.

“I also don’t personally think officials are marking the ball as fast as they once did either. So I don’t know that you’re going to see warp or hyper speed. I do think you’ll see Tennessee in spots try to go fast. I don’t think they were necessarily interested in showing that last week. … But they’re not surprising anybody by it if they go fast on Saturday night. It’s not like Georgia Tech hasn’t prepared for it, but you just don’t see defensive coordinators and coaches of other teams talking about the speed of the game and how much it’s causing problems now because some of the rules that have slowed some of that stuff down.”

As Hubbs said, I’m sure we’ll see some spots where Tennessee tries to go up tempo, but it’s just not possible to move as fast as Hendon Hooker moved the offense a few years ago. The new substitution rules make it difficult. Plus, the defense can use delay tactics pretty much whenever they want to slow things down.

To counter that, we’ll likely see Tennessee use more shifts and motions. They may also huddle and then quickly run to the line to simulate tempo in an effort to get Georgia Tech in a bad matchup that can be taken advantage of.