With Nico Iamaleava, can Tennessee football match its all-time total offense? | Strange

When college football returns in one month, we will begin to learn the answers to important questions. Will Tennessee be a surprise SEC championship contender? Will the Vols make the 12-team playoff?

One thing there’s no mystery about, though. Tennessee will be electric on offense.

That’s why athletic director Danny White hired Josh Heupel three years ago. White wasn’t wrong.

Heupel’s Central Florida teams ranked second nationally in total offense in both 2019 and 2020. His first Tennessee team, 2021, ranked ninth nationally despite a makeshift roster.

Then the 2022 team topped the nation in offense at 525.6 yards per game − and in scoring, at 46.1 points a game.

That Hendon Hooker-led ’22 unit set all manner of school records, including total offense, en route to 11 wins.

In 2023, with Hooker and Biletnikoff Award-winning receiver Jalin Hyatt gone, the Vols “slumped” to 448 yards per game.

But hopes are high that the slump is a one-year aberration. In sophomore Nico Iamaleava, Heuple appears to have the quarterback to soar again in 2024.

A timeline of Tennessee’s offense evolution over the decades is in order. Let’s rewind to the 1950s.

Tennessee first lists extensive stats for the 1950 season. The 1951 national champion team, with Hank Lauricella operating in the single-wing offense, averaged 368.5 yards per game. The Vols went 10-0 regular season. Stats from a Sugar Bowl loss to Maryland didn’t count in that era.

Doug Dickey brought the modern T-formation to Knoxville in 1964. The transition from the single-wing wasn’t an immediate success. The ’64 Vols scored only eight offensive touchdowns all season, attempted fewer passes than the ’63 single-wing team and went 1-5-1 in SEC play.

Things improved. SEC titles came in 1967 and ’69.

But it wasn’t until 1970, Bill Battle’s first season, that the total offense surpassed that 1951 mark, hitting an average of 396.5 yards per game. The Vols went 11-1, finishing second in the SEC and fourth in the AP poll.

In 1984, with Tony Robinson taking over at quarterback, Tennessee finally topped the 400-yard plateau, averaging 401.6 yards per game. The bottom line was only 7-4-1.

Several incremental gains followed.

The 1987 Vols averaged 405.9 yards per game with Jeff Francis at quarterback, finishing 10-2-1 and third in the SEC.

With Andy Kelly under center and Phillip Fulmer promoted to offensive coordinator, Tennessee upped the record to 408.5 yards in 1989, then 411 yards in 1990. Both seasons produced SEC titles.

In 1991, Kelly’s senior year, the average jumped to 467.7 yards a game. Losses to Florida and Alabama left the Vols short of an SEC championship.

Fans didn’t have to wait long for the next pop. In 1993, with Heath Shuler as the Heisman runner-up, Tennessee averaged 480.5 yards, went 9-2-1, losing only to Florida and then Penn State in the Citrus Bowl. Fulmer was the new head coach, David Cutcliffe taking over as coordinator.

The Fulmer-Cutcliffe combo continued to put up numbers. The arrival of Peyton Manning didn’t hurt.

Manning’s senior year, 1997, ended with an SEC title and, at 482.8 yards per game, a new season total-offense standard.

And that’s where the record stayed for 25 years, until 2022.

Oh, there was a threat. In 2012, Tyler Bray rifled passes that led to a total-offense average of 476 yards a game. To no avail. UT went 1-7 in the SEC and Derek Dooley got canned.

I’m betting the 2022 average of 525.6 yards stands for a while. But I’m also betting Nico and the Vols will be fun to watch on offense this fall.

Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: With Nico Iamaleava, can Tennessee football match its all-time total offense? | Strange