Tennessee's Defensive Efforts Deserve a Lot of Credit
On Saturday, the Tennessee Volunteers won 49-13 over the Virginia Cavaliers in Nashville. The win pushes the Vols to a 1-0 start to the season. It moved head coach Josh Heupel's season opener record to 6-0 as a head coach.
A big part of the Vols' win came from the excellent effort by their defense. They held the Cavs' starting quarterback Tony Muskett to under 100 yards on the day. They also held all Virginia rushers to under 100 yards combined.
Many defensive players had great games, including defensive lineman James Pearce Jr. with two sacks. He had an explosive edge off the ends of the line that allowed him to quickly get back to Muskett and the rest of the Virginia backfield. Tyler Baron also performed well with 2.5 tackles for a loss. Wesley Walker and Omari Thomas had 1.5 tackles for a loss, respectively.
Heupel had nothing but praise for the defense postgame, "They [the defense] blow up immediately...I thought our front four did an unbelievable job, and I thought we tackled well for an opener and did a really good job on third down."The secondary made some great plays as well. Kamal Hadden and Jaylen McCollough had multiple pass deflections that kept Virginia's air attack to a minimum. McCollough also had four tackles which was one of the higher totals out of all of the defensive players for the day.
Aaron Beasley was another guy with a quietly good day on defense. He got in the backfield to make tackles and was active in the pass defense with a few deflections. For a team that was shaky at times on defense last season, the Vols showed what the ceiling could be on that side of the ball this season.
Tennessee Volunteers ILB Aaron Beasley and DL Omarr Norman-Lott after the win against Virginia on September 2nd, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Christopher Hanewinckel of USA Today Sports)
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