Halftime Thoughts: Tennessee-South Carolina
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- At the half, Tennessee leads South Carolina 38-7 in its SEC home opener.
This game marks the debut of UT's 'Dark Mode' alternate uniforms, and so far, it seems the effect has worked well. Here are my halftime thoughts:
Good to see Jalin Hyatt involved again
In the past couple games, we haven't seen as much of Tennessee wide receiver Jalin Hyatt.
Still, Vols offensive coordinator Alex Golesh reiterated this week that they want to keep him involved, and Tennessee did just that with the first drive of the afternoon.
After taking a sack, Hendon Hooker found Hyatt for an 11-yard completion. Later in the drive, Hooker drove a three-yard dart over the middle to Hyatt for the first touchdown of the day.
Even with outages, Tennessee defense capitalizes where it couldn't before
In each of the past two games, Tennessee's defense has allowed a double-pass to go for a big gain.
Saturday afternoon, it appeared the Vols learned from that mistake.
With South Carolina threatening to score, the Gamecocks attempted a double pass via their tight end. But Jaylen McCollough nabbed a crucial interception in the checkerboards, giving Tennessee the ball back.
The Vols also caused another turnover in the first quarter, as Aaron Beasley recovered a South Carolina fumble at the Gamecocks' 24-yard-line.
Tennessee's defense has remained in Luke Doty's face so far, generating two sacks to pair with the turnovers.
All this has been impressive, but it's especially refreshing given the absence of Theo Jackson. Jackson has been the Vols' greatest defensive asset through the first five games, but he wasn't dressed out today due to an undisclosed reason.
Brandon Turnage and Doneiko Slaughter have filled in nicely at the Star spot, as Turnage especially has carried a lot of energy on the field.
Hooker remains elusive and efficient -- and JaVonta Payton remains a go-to guy
For the Vols' third touchdown of the day, Hooker sprinted untouched for an 11-yard score.
He finished the first quarter 10-of-13 for 164 yards and three touchdowns, and he took six carries for 26 yards and a score.
One of those touchdowns came as he found JaVonta Payton for a 39-yard touchdown and a 14-0 lead.
Payton streaked wide open, as Josh Heupel continues to put his receivers into open space.
Vols offense continues to explode -- and spread the wealth -- in quick fashion
The Vols' offense took less than two minutes to score on each drive for five of their six first-half scoring drives.
Granted, two of those drives came after the aforementioned turnovers. But the effect is still impressive, and seems to be wearing down the Gamecocks' defensive line.
Aside from Payton, Hooker and Hyatt, Velus Jones. Jr. also found the end zone on a 21-yard romp before Tiyon Evans brought the Vols' rushing attack to life with a 45-yard sprint to the checkerboards.
Last week, Tennessee found most of its success on the ground. This week, it's done so through the air, at least in the first 30 minutes.
The Vols are certainly doing a good job of adapting and adjusting, something with which they seemed to struggle with the previous staff.
Rush defense wearing down may be a concern
Despite the turnovers and early success, Tennessee's defensive line seemed to wear down through the end of the first half. South Carolina running back Kevin Harris found more and more success, eventually punching in the Gamecocks' first score of the day to cap a seven-play, 75-yard drive that ate over three-and-a-half minutes of clock near the end of the second quarter.
Harris currently has five yards per carry.
Against USC, Tennessee can afford to give up that kind of drive, at least if the offense continues to put up insane numbers (like 373 total yards in the first half).
But that won't work against the more elite teams in this league.
The Vols ended the half with solid clock management, as Chase McGrath nailed a 25-yard field goal as time expired for a 38-7 lead.
We'll have more coverage postgame, so stay tuned to VR2 on SI for updates.
