Tennessee transfer defensive back Colton Hood said the Vols sent a message with their 45-26 win over Syracuse on Saturday.
If Tennessee Football sent a message with its 45-26 win over Syracuse Saturday afternoon at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, transfer defensive back Colton Hood provided the exclamation point for the Vols after the season-opening win.
“I think it just showed all the haters and the doubters out there,” Hood said during his postgame press conference, “we’re still the same Tennessee we was last year. Probably going to be better. We’re going to keep getting better after this game. I think that’s what it showed, for real.”
Hood, the Colorado transfer, starred in his debut for Tennessee (1-0), finishing with four tackles, three passes broken up and a fumble returned 22 yards for a touchdown.
Defensive lineman Nathan Robinson stripped Syracuse quarterback Steve Angeli and Hood scooped up the ball on the bounce and took it 22 yards for the score, putting Tennessee up 17-0 to cap a dominant first quarter.
“I’ve been playing baseball since I was six years old,” Hood said. “When I seen that ball on the ground, it’s like picking up a ground ball in the outfield. I just ran it into the end zone.”
‘We know what we can do, how we go out and how we play.’
Josh Heupel’s offense was anything but grounded. Joey Aguilar, making his own debut as Tennessee’s starting quarterback, passed for 247 yards and three touchdowns and the Vols ran for 246 yards and two touchdowns as a team.
Defensively, Tennessee had seven tackles for loss, five sacks and Hood’s defensive touchdown while holding Syracuse (0-1) to 377 total yards on 84 snaps.
“We know what we can do,” Tennessee defensive back Jalen McMurray said, “how we go out and how we play.”
Aguilar transferred to UCLA in December after two standout seasons at Appalachian State, but was back in the NCAA Transfer Portal after former Tennessee starter Nico Iamaleavea transferred to UCLA in April after a messy public breakup with the Vols.
Aguilar’s first start included a 73-yard touchdown pass to Braylon Staley streaking behind the Syracuse defense. He also threw touchdown passes to running back Star Thomas and tight end Miles Kitselman in the second half, as Syracuse tried to get back in the game.
“Joey made plays,” Hood said. “They said we weren’t going to have no quarterback. We always believed in ourselves. We weren’t worried about anything anybody else was saying. We was always just locked in, ready to go play.”
Tennessee replaced Dylan Sampson’srecord-breaking production in the run game last season by splitting the running back load between Thomas, DeSean Bishop and Peyton Lewis.
Thomas had 92 yards on 12 carries, Bishop had 82 yards and a touchdown and Lewis had 38 yards and a touchdown. Aguilar ran for another 34 yards on six rushes, with a long of 25.
“We had a lot of people probably questioning what we’ll be when we lost our quarterback,” Thomas said. “We lost Sampson and stuff, all that.”
Up Next: Tennessee vs. ETSU, Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET
Hood’s transfer from Colorado, in hindsight, seems invaluable after All-American cornerback Jermod McCoy tore his ACL during offseason training in January.
Rickey Gibson III, Tennessee’s starting corner opposite of McCoy, left Saturday’s game in the first half with a left arm injury. McCoy didn’t dress against Syracuse and could miss multiple games while completing his return from the knee injury.
Hood said he heard the doubters when he transferred to Tennessee, but it never slowed him down.
“I didn’t really try to feed into it too much,” he said, “because I know who I am as a person. I know just who the people I have around me are. I just leaned on them … I seen what happened with the team. They said we weren’t going to be good.”
Aguilar didn’t hear the talk and isn’t about to start listening.
“All the outside noise is jut rat poison,” the senior quarterback said. “We only focus (on) who is in the building and the team we got. We got to go back, execute, dial in on everything we got … everything outside is rat poison and we got to focus on ourselves.”
Category: General Sports
