Oklahoma coach confirms suspicion about why Tennessee Vols' offense wasn't as explosive against Sooners

The Tennessee Vols' offense only put up 23 points against the Oklahoma Sooners (UT added 2 points on a safety in the 25-15 win) after scoring at least 51 points in each of their first three games of the season.

After the game, Vols head coach Josh Heupel told reporters that Oklahoma's defensive structure was different than what Tennessee had seen on film.

"Structure (defensively) changed from them, which we anticipated a little bit," said Heupel. "Didn’t know exactly what the structure would look like. [I've] gone against him (OU head coach Brent Venables) enough in my career to kind of expect the unexpected. But we adjusted."

Sooners defensive coordinator Zac Alley confirmed after the game on Saturday night that Oklahoma saved some defensive looks for this game against Tennessee.

"You know, we tried to hold some stuff that we hadn't shown in the first couple of games to try and throw them off a little bit on some of the reads and things they were trying to do," said Alley. "I thought early in the game we did that pretty well. A couple of the issues that we had were really just winning one on one balls than it was anything else. I thought the quarterback (Nico Iamaleava) was a little bit off balanced. They did a good job of protecting him, running the ball, try to keep it out of his hands."

Hearing that comment from Alley is a good sign for the Vols.

Oklahoma had a great defensive plan for the game. And it mostly worked. Tennessee didn't score points because of blown coverages. The Vols had to adjust their game plan to match what the Sooners were throwing at them defensively. Essentially, it was a perfect plan by Oklahoma, but Tennessee was able to gut out a win by winning some one on one matchups and staying patient.

The win wasn't necessarily pretty for the Vols, but it might've been Heupel's best in-game performance as a head coach since taking over at Tennessee in early 2021.

Related: The Tennessee Vols had one of the coolest ways ever to celebrate beating the Oklahoma Sooners