Tennessee football vs. Purdue: 10 keys to the Music City Bowl game
1. Vols’ ability to establish dominance on the ground
While Purdue needs to somewhat establish the run for some sort of balance in this game, Tennessee football actually needs to dominate in the run game to win. The Vols rely on it heavily to set up Josh Heupel’s offense.
One simple number is the determinant on whether or not UT wins its games: Five. The Vols averaged five yards a carry or more in every game they won against FBS foes this year. However, they averaged fewer than that in every game they lost. It’s pretty simple. Average five yards a carry, and they win the game.
Purdue, despite not being able to run the ball, stops the run relatively fine. They give up about 4.3 yards per carry, which is significantly less than the five yards the Vols need to average. However, teams that have beat them, outside of the Minnesota Golden Gophers, have generally torched them on the ground. The Wisconsin Badgers had two 140-plus yard rushers.
If Hendon Hooker is going to torch Purdue like he has torched lots of teams this year, Tennessee football needs to get it going on the ground. Getting everybody healthy should allow for that to happen, but if they don’t do it in a big way, they’ll be in trouble.