By: Jeremy Durham, TriStarDaily Sports Columnist
Every Tennessee fan over 30 has a Fayetteville story, and none of them end well. We haven’t won in Razorback Stadium since 2001, and we’ve lost four straight trips there. Our last visit, in 2024, ended 19-14 with Nico running out of bounds at the Arkansas 20 as time expired.
Granted, “the fumble” that saved the 1998 Vols leading to a National championship is a fond but increasingly old memory. And that was in Neyland Stadium!
Naturally, this is where a redshirt freshman from Brentwood Academy makes his first career start: on the road, in the SEC, in the one building Tennessee can’t seem to leave with a win.
George MacIntyre came off the bench Saturday with the Vols trailing Auburn 7-3. The offense had three points and no pulse. Faizon Brandon, the five-star freshman who hasn’t looked right since getting hurt against Texas, threw his first career pick and looked rattled. Heupel pulled him. MacIntyre went 8-of-10 for 86 yards with no turnovers, and Tennessee won 24-14.
Greg McElroy laid out the split on ESPN. Brandon’s seven drives produced three points at 2.5 yards a play. MacIntyre’s seven drives produced 21 points. That isn’t a quarterback controversy. That’s your answer (at least for this week).
Heupel hasn’t named a starter yet, but that’s just coaches being coaches. You don’t bench a five-star and then send him back out in a hostile SEC road stadium to rebuild his confidence.
There’s a fun subplot too. Arkansas coach Ryan Silverfield had MacIntyre’s uncle, Mike, as his defensive coordinator at Memphis. Expect Silverfield to have a few looks ready for the nephew.
Here’s the thing, though. It barely matters who plays quarterback, because this team isn’t built on its passing game. It’s built on a defense playing at a level we haven’t seen in Knoxville in a long time, and a running game that wears people down.
Remember last year? Tennessee gave up 28.8 points a game, tied for 92nd in the country. Then Heupel hired Jim Knowles, and the whole thing flipped. Through five games, the Vols lead the nation with 23 sacks, more than four a game. They had 37 in all of last season. They’re on pace for about 55.
Texas found out first. The No. 1 team in the country got sacked six times by our defensive line alone, gave up 10 tackles for loss and scored 20 points. Auburn managed 14.
The centerpiece is Xavier Gilliam, who followed Knowles from Penn State and has turned into the best defensive tackle we’ve had since the John Henderson and Albert Haynesworth days. He had four sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss through the first four games, and he did it from the interior, where nobody racks up those numbers. Even Tennessee’s own staff admits they didn’t see this coming. Mariyon Dye has four sacks too. Arkansas’s interior line is next.
The offense’s job is easy: hand it to DeSean Bishop, keep it simple, and let the defense win the game. The Vols bulldozed Auburn in the second half, and they’ll do it to Arkansas too.
Now, the Razorbacks. Silverfield is in year one, and Arkansas is 2-3 and 0-2 in the SEC. The two wins came against North Alabama and Tulsa. Against Georgia, Texas A&M and Utah, they’ve been outscored 122-34. That’s not a football team. That’s a rebuild with a fight song.
Quick victory lap before we get to the number. Last week I said Tennessee would beat Auburn by 10. Final score: 24-14. Dead on. That’s 2-0 against the spread, and I’m not cooling off now.
The line is Tennessee -13.5 with a total around 50. Laying two touchdowns on the road, in a building we haven’t won in for a quarter century, with a kid making his first career start? Sounds crazy. It isn’t.
Bishop gets 25 carries, MacIntyre throws on schedule, and the defense does to Arkansas what Georgia, A&M and Utah already did. By the fourth quarter, the Fayetteville crowd is headed for the parking lot.
Alabama is coming to Neyland next week, and that should sharpen this team, not distract it.
The pick: Tennessee 38, Arkansas 10. Vols -13.5. The streak dies ugly, the Brentwood kid gets a game ball, and the quarterback question settles itself.
Season record ATS: 2-0
Jeremy Durham is Sports Columnist for TriStar Daily and wrote sports and politics for the UT Daily Beacon during his college days.
