Welcome to SEC Unfiltered, the USA TODAY NETWORK’s newsletter on SEC sports. Look for this newsletter in your inbox Monday through Friday. Today, Tuscaloosa News sports columnist Chase Goodbread takes over:
There couldn’t be a worse way for Oklahoma to ring in its SEC membership than to get blasted at home in its first league game by an opposing coach who was once a beloved Sooner .
Unfortunately for the OU, that’s what likely awaits.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel won the 2000 national championship as Oklahoma’s quarterback, finished runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, and parlayed the success into a coaching career that put him on the OU sideline as an assistant for nine years. Fired after the 2014 season by Bob Stoops, Heupel went on to prove himself as a head coach, and his fourth Tennessee team looks primed to stomp on Boomer, Sooner, and the Schooner, too.
The Volunteers have obliterated their first three opponents by a combined score of 191-13. Quarterback Nico Iamaleava, in his first year as a full-time starter, is looking like the dynamic passer recruiting experts promised. In three games, he’s thrown for 232 yards per game with six touchdown passes. If those numbers sound modest, it’s only because UT has been so far ahead on the scoreboard, he’s not been needed for second-half action. Heck, his backups have already thrown 25 passes. Granted, two of the Volunteers’ early dispatches, against Chattanooga and Kent State, were helplessly outmanned. But UT also drummed North Carolina State on the road, and its offense looked unstoppable against the Wolfpack, as well.