The Vols turn the page on a disastrous 2020 season and loud off season by ushering in the Josh Heupel era. How does Tennessee take care of business against Bowling Green. Here are four keys, in our weekly Cheat Sheet.

Get out of the gates — When you are a 5 touchdown favorite no one wants to see you have to get “settled in”. And after all the talk of the up tempo offense and the success of Josh Heupel’s offense everywhere he’s been, the Big Orange nation isn’t interested in 3 and outs and stumbling around out of the gates. Be clean, be fast, and execute from play one. If that means it’s simple early then it’s simple but get rolling quickly.

2. Run the football —Bowling Green, in a shortened season last year, gave up over 300 yards a game on the ground. Heupel doesn’t like the notion that his offense is a pass happy throw it all the time scheme and rightfully so. A year ago his offense rushed for 2107 yards in 10 games. They averaged 44 attempts a game last season. For all the talk of vertical passing and all the quarterback debates, Tennessee has to be able to run the ball this season if they are going to be successful on offense and it needs to start against a Bowling Green defense that was woeful against the run a year ago.

3. Tackle —First games are always interesting for defenses when it comes to tackling. We have seen some who have tackled well in season openers and some who look like they haven’t tackled at all in the pre-season. Heupel praised his defense’s tackling in the first scrimmage and said it was solid in the second scrimmage. Tennessee works tackling drills every day and has tackled some the last two weeks, but this team hasn’t had a full scale scrimmage in over two weeks. How do they tackle particularly in space? You certainly don’t want to give the Falcons anything easy. They are an offense that completed 43% of their throws a year ago.

4. Leave no doubt — I wrote this in my 10 things I think I think piece and again I’m not advocating running up the score. But this is a skeptical fan base to a pretty sizable degree and who can blame them. They have been unbelievable loyal through 10+ years of wandering through the college football forest. They remember close wins over Appalachian State and a loss to Georgia State more than dominating season openers. They have seen flush and start over way too much. What they need is a good old fashion domination of an opponent to start things off. Tennessee is a heavy favorite. The Vols are selling fast, attacking and fun. Fun for fans is dominating an opponent for 60 minutes. Can this team do that against a team that has struggled mightily for the last couple of seasons?