Welcome to The Armchair Volunteer! This is a rebrand that I’ve been working on for some time that will focus solely on Tennessee Volunteers Football.
The inspiration of The Armchair Volunteer comes from my favorite weekly sports article of all time: Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback. MMQB was a weekly NFL article published by journalist Peter King through Sports Illustrated from 1997-2018 and I read it every single week from probably 2004 until his retirement. It was a time that still valued print writing. No paywalls, no ads bombarding the post until your app crashes or you give up. Peter King never wrote clickbait nonsense. He used long-form writing that told real stories and provided real insight and detail.
I intend The Armchair Volunteer to be a bit of an homage to MMQB, focusing the main article on a recap/breakdown of Tennessee’s game of the week and including things like 10 thoughts and feelings from around College Football, awards of the week, dorky sports things that may only interest me, and end each post with a fun quip which King called the “adieu haiku”.
As always, I’m not a journalist or an insider like Peter King. I’m simply a fan who’s been watching and studying football (specifically Tennessee football) for 30 years – hence the “armchair” part. I will eventually spin The Armchair Volunteer off into its own website and should launch it hopefully around mid-season.
All that being said, let’s get into the inaugural posting of ACV!
“Joey is one of those guys, that when you meet you immediately hit it off. Same sense of humor, similar personalities… It’s kind of like you’ve known each other for a while. And it’s something that doesn’t really happen a whole lot“.
Miles Kitselman TE – at SEC Football Media Days, July 15
By Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, GA, it felt like Joey Aguilar had been here all along.
I’m confident in saying that Saturday may have been one of the most fun opening weekends of College Football as a Tennessee fan in recent memory.
Vols get a big win and get some big questions answered in a positive way? Check.
Alabama lost a season opener for the first time since 2001? Check.
Weirdly, 2001 was the last time Tennessee was closest to a National Championship appearance. Double weirdly, Bama’s loss in 2001 was to UCLA *laughs in Rocky Top*
Speaking of UCLA, they lost their own season opening in disastrous fashion to Utah as Nico Iamaleava had a forgettable debut with only 11 completions for 136 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, and 4 sacks. Yes, I stayed up until 2am to watch with my own eyes like an obsessively deranged Batman villain.
I digress. The real story this weekend is Tennessee’s 45-26 beating of Syracuse.
For as good of a game it was, it also had some weird moments that have caused some conflicted feelings. So let’s parse it out, talk about what went right (and wrong), and see if we can make more sense of how this season could look moving forward.
What Went Well For The Offense?
In short? Joey Aguilar went well.
This was the number one question heading into Saturday: Is Joey Aguilar an upgrade or a downgrade from Nico Iamaleava?
For now, it seems, that the definitive answer is upgrade. For someone who just joined the team 3 months (??!!) ago, it sure seemed like Joey Aguilar had spent as much or more time here than Nico ever did. And the flow of the offense agreed. Miles Kitselman tried to tell us.
From the jump, the offense looked and felt faster, less clunky, more purposeful, and more… open than any game I’ve seen over the last 2 seasons. I’m not ready to call it the 2022 offense by a long shot, but the feel of the 2021 offense certainly seems attainable – and that’s still a good thing.
Aguilar was calm and decisive in the pocket. He seemed in command and it seemed as though he had the keys to most of the playbook. This has not been the case since Hooker. Something that has plagued our offense over the last 2 years, is that we would tend to line up with tempo, only for the QB to kill said tempo, stick out his hand to hold the snap, and look over to the sidelines to ask the coaches what to do next. This was the case with both Milton and Nico and it caused Heupel to have to hold his QB’s hands possession by possession. On Saturday, we saw Aguilar move closer to Hooker’s style – confident in the original play call and seeing the defense so that he doesn’t have to hold the snap and turn to the sideline for help. He got to line, snapped the ball quickly, and had confidence that he could see the defense and know where the ball was meant to go.
His throws were not all perfect. In fact, I would say he’s very clearly less physically talented than both Milton and Nico. But, on Saturday at least, he didn’t overthink things or make the offense more complicated than it needed to be. He trusted the play calls, trusted his teammates to be in their spots, and let the ball rip. It resulted in a mostly efficient 16/28 (57%) for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns and – here’s the important thing – ZERO interceptions and ZERO sacks.
A beautiful 73-yard deep ball to WR Braylon Staley for a touchdown confirmed 2 things: that this QB is going to hit multiple home runs this year, and these WRs are going to catch the ball in stride without leaving their feet to finish off the catch with points. Another point on the deep ball, there were no egregious overthrows. The aforementioned throw landed perfectly in the receiver’s arms, another deep thrown was slightly underthrown which isn’t necessarily bad as it can give your receiver opportunities to come back for a jump ball and draw pass interference – which is exactly what happened. A 10-yard overthrow doesn’t give you any of those options.
For some critique, Aguilar needs to see that completion percentage increase and the number one way to do that is to hit the layups. The Heupel offense is predicated on the short, easy throws to the perimeter. The quick screens stretch a defense and force defenders to make 1 on 1 tackles. It also lulls a defense to sleep and opens the door for deep wheel/post/go routes. Another thing these short passes accomplish is keeping the pace moving at warp speed by putting you in short down situations – this opens up the quick snap run game. When you miss these throws, as Aguilar missed a few high and low, you muck up the pace, you get yourself out of easy running situations, and you allow the defense to sag and take away the deep threat. Syracuse was not a good enough team for this to matter in the long run. Against Georgia, however, these throws will be supremely important.
Aguilar was far from the only bright spot on Saturday. A revamped Offensive Line and a bucket of shiny, new toys at Running Back were expected to be strengths in 2025, and both looked the part.
The O Line looks fresh, stacked, and ready for action – even while missing the highly anticipated freshman David Sanders. Swiss Army Knife, Jesse Perry slid over into Sanders spot seamlessly, showing that this line may be capable of mixing and matching as inevitable attrition happens throughout the season. My biggest concern headed into the season was what may happen at Center. We’ve only seen one starting Center in the Heupel era (Cooper Mayes) and any time Coop missed time, it was rough to say the least. Notre Dame transfer, Sam Pendleton got the nod a Center and all signs point to the transition being a good one. Pendleton is big, moves well, kept the offense moving fast, had a great pancake block on a pull that was caught on a replay, and had no snapping snafus.
My favorite stat of the game? Zero sacks. That’s a testament to a truly improved Offensive Line and upgraded pocket presence from a new QB.
We can officially call the Running Back room a three-headed monster.
DeSean Bishop got the start and that should continue through the year. He’s built like a Ninja Turtle and runs exactly like I imagine a Ninja Turtle would run with a football. His choice to wear no gloves was a subtle touch of badassery that fits perfectly with his approach to the game.
Peyton Lewis is the most physically gifted of the three and finished off a touchdown run in which the offensive line actually missed a block on a linebacker, and Lewis said “it don’t matter”. He finished off the run reminiscent of Gerald Riggs Jr at LSU in 2005
Star Thomas may have been the biggest surprise on offense of the day. Not because I didn’t expect him to be good, but because I didn’t expect him to display the best vision of the three. The Senior transfer from Duke showed his experience and came away as the leading rusher on the day. His emergence adds a huge depth piece to a room that should lead the way for the Vols all season.
Wide Receiver was a glaring question mark coming into the season, and I would say that we still don’t really know where we are with this room. What we do know, is that Braylon Staley is every bit the gamer that I predicted in my 2025 Season Preview. His 73-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter shows early chemistry and home run capabilities with his new QB and bodes well as an indicator of things to come.
Chris Brazzell had a couple bad drops early, but settled down and finished with some solid catches, leading the team in receptions. Mike Matthews was more quiet than I would have liked to see, but he did show some YAC abilities turning a screen into extra yards in the third quarter. Matthews also was unfortunately the recipient of some inaccurate short throws by Aguilar that will need to be cleaned up asap. It’s worth noting that Matthews and Brazzell both missed significant time during Fall Camp dealing with nagging injuries.
What Went Well For The Defense?
Defense was certainly more of a mixed bag than the offense, but generally speaking, there were more positives and negatives.
There were times, particularly in the first half, where the defense looked flat out dominant. The secondary looks sticky in man-to-man coverage. Corners were consistently attached to the hip of receivers all day. This is an important development considering out All-American Cornerback, Jermod McCoy is still out with injury. Add the fact that Ricky Gibson (who is darn near as good as McCoy) left with injury and is expected to miss significant time, it was quite encouraging to see the emergence of Colton Hood, Jalen McMurray, Edrees Farooq, and freshman Ty Redmond as reliable playmakers in coverage.
Zone defense is where things got dicey and we’ll talk about that in a minute.
The linebackers had a nice game and look fast and ferocious. Arion Carter is primed to be our defensive leader and has the aura of an old school Tennessee MLB who plays with fire and leads on and off the field. Carter and Edwin Spillman both had nice looking sacks sprung by well-called blitzes by Defensive Coordinator Tim Banks.
The Defensive Line, which was expected to be a strength of this football team, was more up and down and I think that collectively concerned Vol Nation. For the most part, they played good, but the injury situation got weird and you got the sense that eventually, Banks was just concerned about sitting back in zone, getting the game over with, and trying to get out of there as healthy as possible. Injuries immediately had Banks reaching deep into the bag putting young guys on the field, and it just led to some.. clunkiness.
Josh Josephs was able to get some good pressure in the first half and had a strip sack leading into halftime that was recovered by Syracuse. The biggest defensive play of the game came from Sophomore Nathan Robinson getting a strip sack of his own that was scooped by Colton Hood for a Tennessee touchdown.
Some context to consider: This Syracuse offense was coming off a 10-win season and a top 10 offensive performance in 2024. The Vols defense held them to 26 points, recorded 5 sacks and another 7 tackles for loss. Syracuse QB Steve Angeli looked sharp and ready to make an impact in the ACC. I think I counted on one hand the amount of throws he had that were off target. Here’s a stat for you: Angeli threw 17 incompletions on the day, and 10 of them were straight pass breakups. Meaning that 10 of his 17 incompletions were on target and had to be broken up by a defender. He wasn’t sailing throws all over the board like a certain QB in California. Tennessee was stopping them.
Bottom line: we weren’t playing “Northwestern South Dakota State” on Saturday and the Vols defense did not have an objectively bad game.
ATLANTA, GA Ð AUGUST 30: Syracuse quarterback Steve Angeli (9) fumbles the ball during the AFLAC Kickoff Game between the Syracuse Orange and the Tennessee Volunteers on August 30th, 2025, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA. (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire)
Biggest Concerns
All that being said, I do have a concern on both offense and defense.
Defense first this time: Zone coverage and front four pressure.
A couple things happened as the game went on. Injuries piled up, depth became an issue, the defense was getting visibly gassed, and Tim Banks decided to sit back in zone, play bend-but-don’t-break, and let the game wind down. This is a formula that Banks has gone to before, and it’s a formula that hasn’t worked well for him. Banks is great at calling blitzes and dialing up pressure in exotic and creative ways, but when you sit back in zone, you rely on your front four defensive linemen to create that pressure and force the QB to throw to spots he’s unsure of. If you’re in zone and that pressure doesn’t come, the opposing QB will sit in the pocket, let his receive find the hole in the zone, and sling it. That’s exactly what happened to us over and over in the second half. I don’t really care how good your secondary is, without pressure, zone schemes are sitting ducks.
The formula of bend-but-don’t-break CAN work – if you’re making stops in the red zone. The problem in the Syracuse game was that ‘Cuse finished off too many long drives in the endzone. I still think a lot of this was the combination of being thinned out by injuries, playing against a genuinely good offense, and having some first game bugs with young guys.
Regardless, the onus will be on Defensive Line Coach, Rodney Garner to make sure his line is ready to generate solo pressure in zone situations.
There is plenty of precedent for a bend-but-don’t-break zone scheme to compliment a fast, high scoring offense well. I believe that the blueprint that Tim Banks envisions comes from the 2003-2010 Indianapolis Colts. The Colts consistently put a no-huddle, fast-paced offense on the field that led the NFL in yards and scoring. To keep their defenses from being consistently tired, they used a Tampa-2 zone scheme with the idea of sitting back in coverage, never getting beat over the top for big plays, allowing teams to drive (particularly if they couldn’t stop the run), but bowing up in the red zone or on third downs by unleashing two of the NFL’s best edge rushers in Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. The theory was as long as we stop them on the money downs and force punts or even field goals, they can have all the yards they want – because Peyton Manning will be scoring touchdowns on the other side. It was an acceptable trade. This approach wasn’t always perfect, but it led to Super Bowl contention for 8 straight seasons and a championship in 2006.
Coordinating a defense along side a hyper-fast offense is a tough task. Defense will always spend more time on the field than offense as long as Heupel is head coach (i.e. Syracuse time of possession – 34:31, TN time of possession 25:29). It’s a smart move to combat this by employing soft zones when needed. But the key – and I can’t stress this enough – is having those edge rushers who can get you off the field on money downs. This responsibility falls on the likes of Josh Josephs, Dominic Bailey, Tyre West, etc. They did not show up consistently enough on Saturday to make this work in SEC play. It needs to be a focus point for Tim Banks and Rodney Garner moving forward.
Offensively, I’m just going to reiterate, Joey Aguilar MUST improve the short, drive-starting throws. I’ve already touched on this in the earlier segment so I won’t repeat myself here. But this needs to be priority number one for Heupel, Aguilar, and the offense as a whole. They have a glorified scrimmage against ETSU next week to tighten up and get right. If they same mistakes are made against Georgia on Sept. 13, the Bulldogs will be much less forgiving.
10 Things I’m Certain That I Think I Know
I think LaNorris Sellers is going to be a HUGE problem despite how we collectively feel about South Carolina. He could drag a mediocre USC jr team in a similar way as Cam Newton did for Auburn *throws up in mouth*
I think Ty Redmond earned himself a 2026 NIL deal with his play on Saturday. Bright future for the freshman corner.
I think Alabama’s program is in way worse shape that we currently realize.
I think we need to pump the brakes on calling Arch Manning a bust. Was that a bad showing against Ohio State? No doubt. But context certainly matters here. Ohio State just won a national championship convincingly. They have an NFL Defensive Coordinator in Matt Patricia running one of the most talented defenses in the country. Arch was making his first start as the unquestioned “guy” in the Horseshoe. This was always going to be a tough learning experience. Based on the social media chatter I was seeing, I expected to see Arch look WAY worse. What I saw was a young QB making his first real start in a highly hostile environment and an Ohio State team who dominated time of possession, kept him on the sideline and out of rhythm, and clearly outmatched Texas at every turn. I know he has decent mechanics to work with because I’ve seen them, but they looked out of whack and disjointed against the Buckeyes. He has a good circle around him and is way more likely to settle down and figure it out than not. Give him a few games.
I think Ohio State is still the best team in College Football until proven otherwise.
I think UCLA Football may have had its highest rated televised game in decades last night because of the amount of Tennessee fans who stayed up until 2am for a collective hate-watch.
I think college football is better when the Miami Hurricanes are good. The clean uniforms, the iconic brand, the Bad Boy Pistons persona, they are always entertaining and enjoyable to root for or against. A Tennessee/Miami matchup in the postseason would get me so excited you wouldn’t believe. Tennessee’s road win at Miami in 2003 remains one of my all-time favorite games and memories. One of these days I’ll write about it and tell you why.
I think regular season neutral site games need to go away. Save them for Bowl Games. Nobody can argue with me that Saturday’s game wouldn’t have been more fun in Neyland or in the Syracuse dome.
I think that we’re about to see play calling revert back to the style of 2022, and it will have nothing to do with Alex Golesh. This offense belongs to Josh Heupel. It always has, it always will. Offensive Coordinators are glorified Heupel assistants. This isn’t to take away anything from Golesh. He had great trust and rapport with Heupel that formed a nice partnership and Golesh has his new team at USF dialed in. It’s only a matter of time before Golesh gets the call to the coach in the big leagues. But the Tennessee offense runs as Heupel calls it. Josh Heupel has clearly felt hand-cuffed for two seasons with QBs who have not fully understood and interpreted his offense on the field. The playbook has been slashed and in some instances, closed entirely because of the hand-holding Heupel has had to do. Early returns say that Heupel has real trust in Joey Aguilar. Trust to make the correct pre-snap reads, trust put the ball where Heupel asks him to put it, trust to play with confidence and purpose rather than second guessing and indecisiveness. The playbook should be open for business.
I think Joey Aguilar has no idea the reception he is going to get from Neyland Stadium in his first home start next week vs ETSU.
Awards of the Week
ATLANTA, GA Ð AUGUST 30: Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar (6) wears the Old Leather Helmet following the conclusion of the AFLAC Kickoff Game between the Syracuse Orange and the Tennessee Volunteers on August 30th, 2025, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA. (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire)
Offensive Players of the Week:
Joey Aguilar QB – Threw for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns. No picks, no sacks. Carried himself with a calm demeanor and displayed command of the offense. Displayed pocket presence and decision making.
Braylon Staley WR – Proved me right with his explosive play capabilities. A game-high 95 yards on 4 catches. Beat the Syracuse defense deep for a 73 yard score.
Star Thomas RB – Bit of a surprise that he led the team in rushing. Team-high 12 carries for game-high 92 yards. Displayed best running back vision of the 3 backs. Looked like a veteran.
Not to brag but I’ve been a life long Colton Hood fan for the last 3 hours
Colton Hood CB – Dispelled any concerns we may have had about lack of depth in the secondary with Gibson and McCoy working through injuries and Carter’s situation still unfolding. Only allowed 1 reception for 5 yards on 5 targets against a highly accurate QB. Scooped a fumble for a defensive touchdown.
Arion Carter MLB – Game-high 9 total tackles. Flew around the field with speed and purpose. Hard hitter. Looks ready to lead this defense.
Hero of the Week:
Nathan Robinson DT – Responded to a Tennessee fumble by forcing a strip-sack fumble on the very next play which resulted in a Vols touchdown. Killed a chance for Syracuse momentum and kept the game out of reach.
Bust of the Week:
Boo Carter CB – Looked lethargic and seemed disconnected from the game and teammates. Had a chance for a pick but didn’t sprint to the ball, got beat over the top in zone a few times, missed an easy third-down sack that could have ended a big Syracuse drive – instead they finished the drive for a touchdown. Boo Carter’s impact was felt immensely every time he touched the field last season. This week? He was very much an afterthought even with key players out.
Fact of the Week That May Interest Only Me
Squirrel White transferred from Tennessee to Florida State in the offseason. He even had a big 40 yard catch that set up a Florida State touchdown. With Florida State beating Alabama 31-17 on Saturday, Squirrel White now has a 3-1 record against the Crimson Tide (won with TN in ’22 and ’24).
No other player in all of college football has a 3-1 record vs Alabama in at least the last 20 years. Not a single one. The list is Squirrel White… and that’s all.
I checked every data base and stat tracker I could think of, even ran it through ChatGPT. The last time it could’ve possibly happened was in the ’90s.
If Tennessee beats Alabama this year in Tuscaloosa, there are a few more Vols that could be added to this exclusive list.
For now, Squirrel White stands alone. We salute you.
Haiku for You
Orange goggles are on, Joey Football let's them rip - The verdict? I'm in.
A lifelong sports fan from East Tennessee who currently resides in Houston, Texas. I love the Tennessee Volunteers, the NBA, "Pistol" Pete, and Peyton Manning. I'm not a journalist with insider connections, merely a fan who is looking to share my love of the game to anyone who would like to listen.
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