Three things to know about Tennessee, Missouri football's next opponent

Missouri has a doozy this week. The Tigers will go to Knoxville on Saturday and take on  No. 5 Tennessee, a team that beat them 63-24 last season.

This year’s Volunteers might be even better. Here are three things to know about UT before Saturday’s matchup.

The loss

Early last week, Tennessee was standing on top of the college football world. The Volunteers, for the first time in the playoff era, were the top-ranked team in the nation.

UT controlled its destiny for making the playoffs, and the fan base was soaring after a 44-6 victory against Kentucky. Even more, the Volunteers had finally beaten Nick Saban and Alabama for the first time since 2006.

Then, at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Tennessee finally met the boogeyman. Defending national champion Georgia took it to UT, winning the game 27-13.

The game was uncharacteristically low-scoring for the Volunteers, who have built an identity as a high-flying offense that bludgeons opposing defenses early in the game. The Bulldogs did a stellar job of limiting quarterback Hendon Hooker and also stopping the run game.

The game was a possible demonstration of the limits to what Tennessee currently is as a program. The Volunteers are not yet a blue-chip ratio team, though a few more years of solid recruiting could fix that.

As Tennessee stands now though, they aren’t quite as talented a roster as the upper echelon of the SEC. The offense it uses can help to cover up some of those deficiencies, but a team like Georgia is likely to expose them most of the time.

The quarterback

It took Hendon Hooker a moment to entrench himself in Tennessee. When last year began, Hooker wasn’t the starter, after transferring in from Virginia Tech.

Then, he took over and started to dazzle. Hooker has the solid arm strength and exceptional athletic ability, and has blossomed into a Heisman Trophy contender this season

Now the Tigers have to figure out how to stop him. 2022 is Blake Baker’s first season as Missouri’s defensive coordinator, but it’s not his first time going up against Hooker, who he faced as Miami’s defensive coordinator in a matchup with the quarterback’s Hokies.

"The thing that’s most improved though over the couple years since I faced him last, is he’s really, really become an accurate passer,” Baker said “He could always run, I know he took, I think it was a 48-yard power read to the house against us when I was at Miami, so I know he can run, but his biggest improvement, in my opinion, is his accuracy.

The coach

Tennessee’s turnaround has been under a coach familiar to many Missouri fans. Josh Heupel was offensive coordinator for the Tigers under Barry Odom before he took the head coaching job at Central Florida.

After two years of leading the Golden Knights, Heupel followed athletic director Danny White to Knoxville. The program he took over was fully immersed in turmoil.

The Volunteers had just got rid of former head coach Jeremy Pruitt, who presided over losing football and allegedly helped cause an NCAA investigation. Times were bad.

Heupel brought to the table an offensive scheme that bludgeons opponents with pace. The Volunteers play so fast that opposing teams are unable to make substitutions, which can make things difficult as the defense wears down.

“Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” Baker said on Tuesday. “That’s what they want to do is they want to take you to the deep water and drown you and you got to survive. The big thing that we’ve got to do is make sure that we’ve got our cleats in the ground before the ball is snapped.”

In addition to the quick passing game, the Tennessee offense can also gouge opponents on the ground. Missouri’s defense has been stellar all season, but the Volunteer attack will likely prove the toughest test of the year.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou football: what to know about Tennessee before SEC game