BATON ROUGE, La. — No soul-crushing penalties with zero time left on the clock this time.
Tennessee didn’t just beat LSU Saturday. The No. 8 Vols dominated the No. 25 Tigers on their storied home turf.
They took advantage of short fields helped along by LSU mistakes. They came up with stops with their backs against the wall. They even scored on drives that started on the opposite end of the field.
Behind quarterback Hendon Hooker, who turned in another Heisman-worthy performance with 239 passing yards and two touchdowns, and a suffocating showing from the Vols’ defensive front, Tennessee battered the Tigers from start to finish, beating them 40-13 in its first visit to Tiger Stadium since 2010’s deflating finish that went in LSU’s favor.
The win pushed the Vols to 5-0 overall-their best mark since 2016-and 2-0 in SEC play.
Two weeks after snapping a five-game losing skid to Florida with a possible program-defining 38-33 victory at Neyland Stadium, Tennessee unquestionably faced its toughest road test to date in Baton Rouge and handled it with relative ease.
Even without star wideout Cedric Tillman for the second-straight game, LSU’s secondary had very few answers for Vols’ receivers. Bru McCoy had a career-high seven catches for 140 yards and Jalin Hyatt hauled in two touchdowns.
Tennessee’s defense also made it a miserable afternoon for Jayden Daniels. The LSU quarterback was sacked four times and when the Tigers (4-2, 1-2 SEC) tried to keep what momentum they had, the Vols came up with critical fourth down stops to give the ball back to their prolific offense.
Tennessee’s special teams set the tone, however.
Paxton Brooks’ short boot on the opening kickoff slipped through the hands of Jack Bech and was recovered by Will Brooks to set up Vols’ offense at the 17-yard line.
Jabari Small punched in the first of two touchdowns five plays later to put Tennessee up 7-0.
Twice in the first half LSU tried extending promising drives with attempts on fourth-and-short that were snuffed out by Tennessee.
The first came inside the Vols’ 20 when the Tennessee defense closed in and forced Kayshon Boutte out of bounds a yard short. That sequence led to a 35-yard Chase McGrath field goal to extend the Tennessee lead to 10-0.
Josh Williams was brought down for a loss on fourth-and-short at the 47 on the second stop early in the second quarter. On the first play of the ensuing drive, Hooker hit Hyatt in the end zone for a 45-yard touchdown strike to push the score to 20-0.
For Hooker, the scoring toss put his streak of games with a touchdown pass to 17, one shy of tying former quarterback Heath Shuler for the program record.
After the Vols took a 23-7 lead at the half, Hooker engineered a eight-play, 76-yard drive that showcased all of his skill sets to open the third quarter. He rattled off a 26-yard run on the play before finding Hyatt on a 14-yard pass that swelled the Tennessee advantage to 30-7.
Small capped off a career game of 127 yards on 22 carries with his second touchdown on a 5-yard run in the third quarter to make it 37-7 and McGrath added his fourth made field goal with a 32-yard kick with two minutes, 39 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
LSU scored on a Williams run in the second quarter and a 5-yard touchdown pass from Daniels to Boutte in the fourth.
Tennessee is set to host No. 1 Alabama next Saturday at Neyland Stadium for the first ranked matchup between the two teams since 2016. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. on CBS.
*****
– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.
– ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.
– SUBSCRIBE TO THE VOLREPORT YOUTUBE CHANNEL.
– FOLLOW VOLREPORT ON TWITTER: @TennesseeRivals, @TMansfieldMedia, @JNichols_2121, @DavisMoseley, @LukeWinstel, @ByNoahTaylor, @TylerWombles, @TylerIvens.
