Tennessee Football: 2021’s Three Biggest Surprises

On Rocky Top, surprises become grief more often than not. During the Tennessee football 2021 season though, the surprise was welcome; a Vol football team that was both aesthetically pleasing to watch, and one that worked despite not much depth.

After moving on from 2020’s total collapse – and Jeremy Pruitt – Tennessee football needed to go the opposite direction in every way imaginable.

In came Josh Heupel, who ran an offense at UCF that went as quick as quick could go. No longer were the Vols going to be a stodgy, 1990s SEC football team that crushed you under a mountain of linebackers. Instead, they became an offensive ripper.

The Volunteers cut through defenses like a saw through balsa wood, threatening to break off a 10-play drive that exhausted a defense at any moment. To do all that in under two minutes pushed it from excellent execution to performance art.

What made Tennessee football’s 2021 season all the more remarkable was the lack of bodies. No-huddle, hurry-up teams are supposed to be deep, with that team’s depth tiring the opponents out. The Vols, on the other hand, had 71 scholarship players in total on last year’s team.

To go from 3-7 to 7-6 (and what should have been 8-5), there had to be at least a couple of total surprises and here are the three biggest hares pulled from Heupel’s hat in 2021.