Dylan Sampson sees college football games differently now.
The Tennessee running back used the open date last Saturday to sit down and watch the Alabama-Texas A&M game, toeing the line of enjoying a day off and scouting the Aggies, who are next on the Vols' schedule.
"I feel like once you come into this level of play, you just watch football differently in general," Sampson said. "You can be a fan but, you're more critical in general...You're just watching it with a keen eye, especially playing this (Texas A&M) team and watching linebacker tendencies, safety tendencies.
"It's hard not to be critical of everything they do while just sitting back and enjoying the TV copy of the game. It's kind of like you get both sides of it looking like that."
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For Sampson, it was an opportunity to see a Texas A&M defense that has largely been dominant up front in its first six games, including against Alabama.
Though Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe managed to throw for more than 300 yards and three touchdowns, the Aggies sacked him six times and made the run game virtually non-existent.
Alabama rushed for just 23 yards on a combined 26 carries, becoming the fourth team that Texas A&M has held to less than 100 yards rushing this season. Opponents are averaging just 84.0 rushing yards per game.
"(Texas A&M is) really, really talented up front," Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle said. "They've got a good group of guys that have been playing together for awhile and what they do on defense is they go to three-down to four-down pressure and drop eight, so they change the picture of your front.
"On your ID calls, they change it from snap to snap and then they've got talented players up front that they turn lose and go after the football. They present a unique challenge this week."
WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee coordinators Tim Banks and Joey Halzle meet with media
The bulk of Tennessee's offensive success has come from running the ball and Saturday's match up (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) will pit the SEC's top rushing offense against its best run-stopping defense
The Vols average 231.2 yards on the ground with Jaylen Wright leading the way with 436 yards and a touchdown on 61 carries while Jabari Small and Sampson average more than 6 yards every time they touch the ball.
The three backs have been the tone-setters to this point in the season for Tennessee (4-1, 1-1 SEC). Wright has already posted three 100-plus yard game, including 123 yards in his last outing against South Carolina and Sampson has already tied his total touchdown number from a year ago.
WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee football players Dylan Sampson, Wesley Walker and Aaron Beasley
After the Vols' pass game carried the offense to historic numbers last season, Sampson is content with being the spark plug this time around even as its sternest test in Texas A&M (4-2, 2-1) looms.
"That's the mentality that we want. Every time we hit the field we say, 'it starts with us,'" Sampson said. "That's the truth. It starts with us and the o-line. We get it going. It's a different team this year...Our mentality is to do what we do to spark the offense and I feel like everybody wants to be that person, the receivers out on the perimeter. We want to go out there and get this started.
"Our mentality as a whole room is we're going to go out there and get this started. Every time we touch that ball, everything we do, there's no doubt when we leave that field that we're doing our part at a high level."
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