The signs were there from the beginning, all the way back to the start of last season.
Tennessee began putting up big offensive numbers, numbers that hadn’t been seen recently in Knoxville. The Volunteers went from the 109th-ranked scoring offense in 2020 to No. 7 last year. They had a four-win turnaround and reached a bowl game for just the second time in five years.
It was obvious then that Tennessee had found a coach after misfiring so many times going back to the days when Phillip Fulmer strode the sideline. Saturday, the entire country realized it, watched Josh Heupel and his star quarterback, Hendon Hooker, stun Alabama, 52-49, emphatically announce themselves as national championship contenders.
Tennessee, an SEC East punching bag the better part of the last two decades, didn’t just overcome everyone’s bully in the third Saturday of October rivalry. It took a roundhouse, and showed it has an iron chin, recovered from blowing an 18-point lead to knock off Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide for the first time in 16 years. It hung the most points on Alabama in over a century, dating all the way back to 1907 when Sewanee scored 54.
After Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley, Butch Jones and Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee finally got it right with Heupel. His hire wasn’t the splash as some of the others that preceded him. It wasn’t roundly praised. He didn’t come from the Saban coaching tree. He worked his way up the coaching ladder, spending time as an assistant at Arizona, Oklahoma, Utah State, and Missouri before going 28-8 in three seasons as the head man at Central Florida.
Last year, Heupel won seven games in his first season at Tennessee, losing three times by a single score. Then came this fall, and this 6-0 start, a stretch they have been waiting years to see at Tennessee. He has made Hooker into one of the nation’s top quarterbacks, the super senior throwing for 46 touchdowns and just three interceptions since joining him after three seasons at Virginia Tech.
Installing a modern up-tempo offense, Heupel has coached aggressively from the time he arrived on campus, and none more so than against Alabama. Tennessee attacked all game. When Crimson Tide kicker Will Reichard’s 50-yard field goal was wide right, only 15 seconds remained. Plenty of coaches would’ve taken a knee, be happy for overtime. Heupel coached to win the game rather than not to lose it, and Hooker got Chase McGrath in position to deliver the dramatic victory 16 years in the making with a 40-yard field goal he knuckleballed through the uprights.
A raucous celebration ensued, the crowd of 102,000 inside Neyland Stadium exploding and storming the field. The goal posts were torn down. Tennessee was the story of the day, and it has become the greatest story of this season.
Orange crush
Saturday afternoon, Syracuse became more than a cute, unpredictable upstart. By whipping N.C. State, 24-9, at home to remain undefeated, the Orange announced themselves as deserving of the No. 18 ranking next to its name, as one of the more improbable teams of this season.
Syracuse won 11 games the last three seasons and five league contests. It finished with a losing record seven of the last eight years. It was picked last in the mediocre ACC Atlantic Division. But Dino Babers’ team now finds itself as one of only two undefeated ACC teams remaining, off to its first 6-0 start since 1987. Predictably, the other one is Clemson, the Orange’s opponent next week. Remarkably, Syracuse and star running back Sean Tucker will be in one of the nation’s showcase games in Death Valley.
It will be a heavy underdog. Nobody is expecting much from Syracuse. But expectations were low entering the season, too, and six games in, the Orange have yet to lose.
The SEC three?
The scenario is unlikely, but it is possible. The SEC could send three teams to the playoff. Consider: Alabama wins out, beating Georgia in the SEC title game. Georgia tops Tennessee on Nov. 5, handing the Volunteers their lone loss. All three teams would have one high-level loss, and all would have one very good win.
Now, Ohio State and Clemson are both undefeated, big brands that are unlikely to be left out of the playoff if they win out. One would have to suffer a loss to not make it. TCU, the undefeated Big 12 leader, could be another factor. One of the aforementioned SEC teams could wind up with two losses. But don’t dismiss the possibility of the powerhouse conference at least having three teams with a shot at playing for a title. Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia sure seem like three of the best teams in the country.
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