Tennessee beats UTEP 56-0 as College Football Playoff door opens

On By Littum

Tennessee football surged to a 56-0 victory over UTEP at Neyland Stadium on Saturday to grab an opening in the College Football Playoff race.

Nico Iamaleava threw a career-high four touchdown passes as the No. 11 Tennessee (9-2) went on a scoring spree in the second and third quarters against the Miners (2-9).

Tennessee’s lopsided win and a couple of layoffs in other games put the Vols in much better shape to reach the 12-team playoff.

Florida upset the no. 9 Miss Ole 24-17. And no. 2 Ohio State beat no. 5 Indiana 38-15.

The Vols had entered the weekend as the first team out of the playoffs, but they will likely find themselves back in the field. The updated College Football Playoff rankings will be released on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).

Tennessee plays Vanderbilt on Nov. 30 (noon ET, ABC) at First Bank Stadium in Nashville. But let’s wrap up this win over UTEP with these four takeaways.

Nico Iamaleava threw four touchdown passes

Iamaleava had a shaky start. But, boy, did he catch fire after that.

During a stretch that started in the second quarter, Iamaleava completed 15-of-17 passes for 195 yards and four TDs as the Vols mounted seven scoring drives with him behind center.

Iamaleava threw a 9-yard TD pass to Squirrel White on a receiver screen, a 1-yard TD pass on a quick rollout, an 18-yard TD pass to Bru McCoy on a fade route and another 7-yard TD on McCoy.

Iamaleava completed 17-of-23 passes for 209 yards and four touchdowns. He also rushed for 36 yards.

Dylan Sampson chases Vols rushing records

Dylan Sampson moved closer to UT’s single-season rushing record and career rushing TD record with one regular-season game and the postseason back in 2024.

Against UTEP, he rushed for 77 yards and a TD on 11 carries.

Sampson now has 1,307 yards rushing. Travis Stephens rushed for 1,464 yards in 2001 for the UT single-season record.

Sampson now has 35 career rushing TDs, tying James Stewart for second on UT’s all-time list. Gene McEver holds the UT career record with 37 rushing TDs scored from 1928-31.

Sampson already owns the UT single-season records for total TDs (22) and rushing TDs (22). He trails Alabama’s Derrick Henry, who set the SEC single-season record with 28 rushing TDs in 2015.

Defense back to dominance

Tennessee’s defense returned to form against an inferior opponent after a frustrating performance against Georgia in the previous game.

The Vols forced two turnovers and had 15 tackles-for-loss.

Jermod McCoy had his third interception of the season, which was tied with Will Brooks for the team lead. Rickey Gibson forced a fumble and Dominic Bailey recovered it.

James Pearce had two sacks and Joshua Josephs had two tackles-for-loss.

25th win at Neyland Stadium under Josh Heupel

Tennessee improved its home record to 25-4 in Josh Heupel’s four-year coaching tenure.

It has won 20 of its last 21 at Neyland Stadium, including a 14-game home streak that ended with losses to Georgia in 2021 and 2023.

The Vols finished with a 7-0 record at Neyland Stadium in the 2024 regular season. At home, they were 5-3 in 2021, 7-0 in 2022 and 6-1 in 2023.

Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. E-mail [email protected]. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing knoxnews.com/subscribe.

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