How Tennessee built an elite defensive line to beat Georgia - ESPN

Josh Heupel was clear-eyed when he landed at Tennessee in 2021.

The Vols had won only 38% of their SEC games in the previous three seasons, spending the better part of the Jeremy Pruitt era languishing in the bottom half of the SEC against the run and finishing better than 11th in defensive pressures just once over that span.

If Heupel was going to return Tennessee to SEC contention, he knew the Vols would first have to start winning on the line of scrimmage.

Enter defensive line coach Rodney Garner. With a reputation as one of the SEC's most intense, old-school position coaches, Garner, who has coached in the SEC since 1990, was acutely aware of what it would take for Tennessee to bridge the gap with the conference's elite defensive lines when he arrived for his second coaching stint with the Vols in 2021. He also knew such a transformation would take time, on the field and on the recruiting trail.

«We wanted to change the culture from the very essence of it,» Garner, now in his 35th season as an SEC assistant, told ESPN. «It wasn't easy — I'll tell you that. That first spring, I was like, 'Oh, I don't know what I signed up for.' But the guys who stuck it out bought in. They saw that there was some logic behind the madness.»

Elite defensive line play is no longer just aspirational at Tennessee. Powered by six Heupel signees, four Pruitt-era holdovers and a pair of transfers, the Vols boast one of college football's most dominant defensive lines in 2024, equipped to match the SEC's elite as No. 7 Tennessee hits mid-November contending for its first College Football Playoff appearance.

«They play a lot of players, which allows them to play really hard and really physical,» Georgia coach Kirby Smart said this week. «You