DEEPER MEANING FOR MCCOY
It wasn’t just another season opener for Tennessee Redshirt Senior Bru McCoy on Saturday. For McCoy, the game held a deeper meaning.
Saturday’s 69-3 win over Chattanooga was the first game back for McCoy after a gruesome ankle injury ended his 2023 season against South Carolina. It was also his first game since his grandfather passed away after a battle with cancer in the offseason.
“Man, I can’t think of anybody that would have been more proud,” McCoy said of his grandfather. “When I had flown home to see him in the hospital, I took my boot off and took my first steps out of my boot when he got out of his hospital bed. So, that was a cool moment we had together.”
“I give a lot of my credit to my success to him because of how he instilled a lot of values in sports and just how to be a man. I miss him a lot.”
McCoy ended the game with six catches for 89 yards including a 37-yard pass.
“Yeah, huge for him, his family, you know,” Tennessee Head Coach Josh Heupel said of McCoy’s performance. “We saw them in the hotel last night and we were excited, anxious, nervous, and Bru was excited to go play. A great day, you know, he got opportunities to get the ball in his hand, made plays and played really well.”
THORNTON JR. HAS BIG GAME IN RETURN
Dont’e Thornton Jr. worked on his mindset to have fun playing football this off-season. It sure looked like he had fun on Saturday.
The senior wide receiver caught two touchdown passes and finished with three catches for 105 yards in the Vols’ win over Chattanooga on Saturday.
“I would say my mindset going into the offseason was to instead of letting the game get to me so much, is to have fun with it,” Thornton Jr. said. “I know at a young age my whole reason of playing football was to have fun. It was for me to have fun. So, knowing that now that I got to college there’s a lot more aspects that make the game stressful, I have to bring myself back to the old way that I was thinking.”
“At the end of the day, it’s just football, so I would say that the main thing I worked on this offseason was my mindset, and my mental game.”
Thornton Jr. missed the final two games of the 2023 season after an injury at Missouri last season.
“Comfortability outside,” Thornton Jr. said. “Honestly, I feel great, I feel like I needed to have a good game back, and I feel like this is the game that I expected to have. It felt really good.”
Saturday’s game was also a chance to show how comfortable Thornton Jr. has become with the offense.
“You can just see how much more comfortable Dont’e got with this offense,” Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava said. “It was his first-year last year and he was still figuring things out. I feel like he was dialed in this whole fall camp, spring camp, and he has put great work in. It showed on the field today.”
OFFENSE GOES WILD
The Tennessee offense rolled on Saturday.
The Volunteers compiled 718 yards of total offense which was the second most in a single game in program history. Tennessee’s program record is 724 yards set during the 2022 Missouri game.
Iamaleava broke a school record for passing yards in a half as he threw for 314 yards while going 22-of-28 passing.
“I didn’t know,” Iamaleava said of the record. “A couple of my teammates were telling in an interview that I had at the end of the game, is when I really found out. It is a cool and surreal moment I did not even know about it, but it felt good to go out there with my teammates.”
Tennessee had 503 total yards in the first half.
For recap and photo gallery of Tennessee’s win over UTC, click here.
