Tennessee opened the season in impressive fashion on Saturday, routing Furman 56-9 at Neyland Stadium.

Freshman QB Faizon Brandon was the biggest story of the day, as he looked like anything but a true freshman making his first collegiate start. He was 13/17 passing for 226 yards with three touchdowns while running for two more. His five touchdowns were the most by a true freshman in a season opener this century and the first by anyone in the SEC since Cam Newton in 2010 to have three passing touchdowns and two rushing in his first start.

But despite the very successful start, some Vol fans noticed something that left them scratching their heads: why didn’t Tennessee test Furman’s secondary deep early in the game?

Josh Heupel addressed a question on that on Monday during his weekly press conference. And according to him, it was what Furman presented defensively as well as Tennessee’s own self-inflicted mistakes.

Josh Heupel addressed at his press conference whey Tennessee didn’t take more early deep shots against Furman

“I anticipated them being pretty soft early in the football game,” Heupel said. “That’s why there weren’t a bunch of shots down the football field. You talk about playing smart football, the little things adding up. We’re behind the chains on drive two and drive three from self-inflicted wounds. All of that is a part of why the first quarter was the way that it was.”

Furman head coach Clay Hendrix addressed that exact question after the game as well.

“Maybe it’s a little surprising we didn’t see a few more balls down the field in the first half,” Hendrix said. “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.”

It really wasn’t much of a big deal for Heupel to implement the first half game plan that he did. After all, it was Brandon’s first game. And Brandon quickly showed what he could do down the field once the third quarter got underway. He found Mike Matthews completely down the field by himself, and he put a perfect ball in stride over his shoulder for a 55-yard touchdown. His 57-yard touchdown pass gave Matthews a chance to rise over the defender and grab it.

I expect that we’ll see deep throws earlier in the game against Georgia Tech this weekend, and if he has that same touch, we could see a number of highlight plays against from Tennessee’s offense.