How Tennessee constructed an elite protective line to beat Georgia

• Eli Lederman, ESPN Personnel WriterNov 15, 2024, 07:55 AM ET Close Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.Josh Heupel

was clear-eyed when he landed at Tennessee in 2021.

The Vols had actually won just 38% of their SEC games in the previous 3 seasons, investing the better part of the Jeremy Pruitt era suffering in the bottom half of the SEC against the run and ending up much better than 11th in defensive pressures simply once over that span.If Heupel was going to return Tennessee to SEC contention, he understood the Vols would first have to begin winning on the line of scrimmage.Enter defensive line coach Rodney Garner. With a reputation as one of the SEC’s a lot of extreme, old-school position coaches, Garner, who has coached in the SEC since 1990, was acutely familiar with what it would consider Tennessee to bridge the gap with the conference’s elite defensive lines when he arrived for his 2nd coaching stint with the Vols in 2021. He likewise knew such a transformation would take some time, on the field and on the recruiting trail.Editor’s Picks 2 Associated”We wished to change the culture from the extremely essence of it,”Garner, now in his 35th season

as an SEC assistant, told ESPN.” It wasn’t easy– I’ll tell you that. That first spring, I was like,’ Oh, I do not understand what I registered for.’But the guys who stuck it out purchased in. They saw that there was some reasoning behind the insanity.” Elite protective line play is no longer simply aspirational at Tennessee. Powered by 6 Heupel signees, 4 Pruitt-era holdovers and a set of transfers, the Vols boast one of college football’s most dominant defensive lines in 2024, geared up to match the SEC’s elite as No. 7 Tennessee hits mid-November competing for its very first College Football Playoff appearance.”They play a lot of players, which allows them to play actually hard and actually physical,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said this week.

“You can see the strain in the guys that can be found in to play. There’s truly no drop when they go from their first-line guys to their second-line guys. “Led by All-SEC protective end James Pearce Jr., the system sits at the heart of a Vols defense that enters Week 12 very first among FBS programs in third-down defense( 24 %), 5th in scoring defense(12.6 PPG) and total yardage(271.6 YPG ), and ninth in run defense (100.0 YPG). And the Vols roll deep, featuring 11 defensive linemen with at least 100 snaps played this fall, 2 more than any other SEC program in 2024. As Tennessee gos to No. 12 Georgia on Saturday(7:30 p.m. ET, ABC), the Vols will discover whether the line they developed to beat the SEC’s best can come through.Tennessee got in the early finalizing period on Dec. 15, 2021, with holes to

fill on the protective line. By day’s end, the Vols had actually beaten Georgia to a pair of key potential customers and signed four members of their 2024 protective line rotation.The first domino fell before 9 a.m. that Wednesday when four-star defensive take on Tire West turned his dedication from Georgia to Tennessee after spending more than a year in the Bulldogs ‘2022 class. Pearce’s commitment came just a few hours later.A fairly unheralded three-star recruit out of Charlotte, North

Carolina, Pearce picked the Vols over Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. 4 years later, he’s a forecasted first-round NFL draft choice leading Tennessee in sacks and takes on for loss. Rodney Garner has actually coached at multiple SEC schools. Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire Tennessee signed two other protective linemen– three-stars Joshua Josephs and Jayson Jenkins– in the class of 2022. In 2023, Tennessee vanquished Georgia, Alabama and other SEC enemies for ESPN 300 protectors Caleb Herring and Daevin Hobbs.All told, the Vols contended with Georgia for four of the 6 protective linemen they checked in Heupel’s very first two cycles with the program. All six remain key parts of Tennessee’s rotation in 2024, and, joined by transfers Jaxson Moi( Stanford)and Omarr Norman-Lott( Arizona State ), brand-new additions under Heupel comprise two-thirds of the nucleus of a system that’s pressing opposing backfields more regularly than all however four other FBS defenses this fall.”We have a plethora of dudes in this room,”said fifth-year defensive tackle Bryson Eason.Eason is among 4 remaining factors who played under Pruitt, beginning together with fellow protective line holdovers Omari Thomas and Dominic Bailey in 2024. The experienced group is necessary at least in part since of how Tennessee hired on the defensive line in the years before Heupel showed up. Of the 14 high school defensive line prospects Pruitt signed throughout four classes 2017-20, only six remained when Heupel took control of the program in 2021.

This fall, Eason, Thomas and Bailey each rank amongst the program’s leading five in snaps, and together, alongside defensive deal with Elijah Simmons, they make up the veteran system that held up against, and eventually welcomed, the cultural modification of Garner’s defensive line room. “It’s quite popular that I’m not the simplest guy to bet,” Garner stated.”I’m very demanding. I will make you work hard. Responsibility, expectations, the requirements; everything altered when we got here.

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go after? What are the present odds for the leading 4? The Allstate Playoff Predictor has the responses. Inspect back every week as the odds are updated following that week’s games. There’s maybe no much better representative of the transformation on Tennessee’s protective line than

Bailey, the fifth-year protective end. Struggling on the field and in the class, Bailey was an enigma to Garner when he arrived in 2021. Garner wasn’t sure whether Bailey was a tackle or a defensive end, and in some cases wondered whether he even wished to be

at Tennessee in the first location.”But that kid, he just went to work,” Garner said. “He purchased into what we were attempting to do.”A reserve from 2020 to 2023, Bailey has grabbed hold of the starting edge area opposite Pearce this fall, and through nine games, his 297 snaps ranks 2nd just to Pearce’s tally among Tennessee protective linemen. When Alabama visited Neyland Arena on Oct. 19, Bailey blew up, logging a career-high 4 tackles with 2 rushes and a sack in the Vols ‘second win over the Crimson Tide considering that 2007

. “He actually flipped the script on that whole story,”Garner said.”Which’s the story of our space.”Simmons, in his 6th season at Tennessee, is the grill master of the Vols’ protective line.Away from the football center, the group can often be discovered around a barbecue. Simmons understands his way around a spice rack, and his burgers are specifically popular.”He understands what he’s doing on the grill,”Eason said.”Whether it’s [Simmons] cooking or we’re going bowling or

going to the motion pictures, we hang together outside the building.”If the depth of this Tennessee

protective line– ready and able to go deeper than any other system in the SEC– is its greatest strength, then the togetherness of the group is a key piece of everything that’s developing front for the Vols’defense this fall. On fall Friday nights, you’ll discover 15 or two Tennessee defensive linemen packed into one hotel space, trading turns on NBA 2K until curfew. Dominic Bailey ended up being a starter in 2024. Caitie McMekin/USA TODAY Network by means of Imagn Images Entering Week 12, the leaguewide average of defensive linemen who have played 100 or more snaps on groups throughout the SEC is 7.1. Among the other eight SEC programs ranked together with Tennessee in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings, just 2– Ole Miss and South Carolina– have 8 protective linemen at 100 snaps or more like the Vols’leading 11.” Everyone rotates and everybody contributes and everybody does their task,” Thomas stated.”Being able to have a bunch of guys rotating allows you to play fresh; you play fast.”Depth and rotation likewise imply sacrifice. And the most desired draft prospect on the defensive line is no exception.ESPN’s Jordan Reid lists Pearce as his second-ranked protective end prospect for the 2025 NFL draft. But as Pearce takes the field at Georgia on Saturday, he’ll have played 320 total snaps in 9 games this fall, fewer than Arkansas’ Landon Jackson(477 snaps), LSU’s Bradyn Swinson(437 snaps ), Texas A&M’s Nic Scourton(397 snaps)and Penn State’s Abdul Carter (392 snaps) and a handful of other leading NFL prospects at the position. Yet Pearce still leads the country in protective pressure percentage(22.4%)

, and he ranks 14th in total sacks produced( seven)amongst FBS defenders.After Pearce, the Vols include nine defenders who have actually played someplace in between 297 and 118 snaps this fall. The balance works.College Football Playoff Bracket Difficulty Fill out approximately 2 College Football Playoff Brackets! Produce a group and invite your pals.$ 50K in rewards! Make Your Picks “There’s a great deal of ball to be played– it’s a long 60 minutes, “Eason stated. “My individual opinion, and a lot of guys share this viewpoint, is it’s a high-end that we can have many guys that enter there and play up to that standard. Everybody has a function. “A deep Tennessee defensive line was the difference-maker last month in the win

over Alabama, when the Vols swarmed quarterback Jalen Milroe and held the Crimson Tide to 75 total rushing backyards. Turning 12 deep on the protective line, Tennessee developed 14 pressures before halftime, then forced another 10 as the Vols shut the door in the second half.”We rotate the method we do so our guys stay fresh down the stretch,”Garner said.” We’re not jeopardizing on that. “Dominance on the protective