Dylan Sampson again embodies Tennessee’s culture as second-half ‘spark plug’ against Alabama

Dylan Sampson had been largely immune from the struggles plaguing the Tennessee offense during its first two games of the month, but the outstanding running back got his team off on the wrong foot with the first lost fumble of his college career early in Saturday’s game against Alabama. It led to a third straight scoreless first half for the Vols, their first such stretch of futility in 61 years. Yet he sparked the offense and the team yet again in the second half, delivering again with 139 rushing yards and two more touchdowns, though there was more significance in Sampson’s performance in the 24-17 win against the Crimson Tide.

One of the program’s leaders, Sampson cited the mood in the locker room at halftime as an intangible and the play of the defense as a catalyst to Tennessee coming to life in the second half. The opening 30 minutes saw the Vols muster just 143 yards and score zero points with three turnovers. Sampson’s fumble at the end of a 20-yard run denied a first-and-10 in the red zone on the opening series.

The second half saw Tennessee roll up 265 yards and score touchdowns on drives of 91, 75 and 54 yards. The Vols rushed for 170 yards after they had just 44 yards before halftime. After the defense kept Tennessee in the game, the offense finally held up its end of the deal.

“Our defense is out there giving us confidence,” Sampson said. “We kind of make it hard on them in the first half, but they’re playing their tails off, no matter who’s in the game, and you respect that. That lights a fire, and if that doesn’t, something’s wrong. So I think having a stout defense like that, who can control the line of scrimmage and make it hard on the quarterback, that does something for us, because it’s just like we’ve got to go get something done. We’ve got to have their back. It’s been starting with that for the past games, but we collectively come together. We trust each other. We love each other. It’s a real brotherhood and connection in this locker room.”

Sampson, who sported a splint on his thumb in his postgame interview, again shouldered a heavy workload, getting 26 carries after he got 29 touches in the win against Florida. He rushed for 139 yards, his sixth 100-yard performance in seven games this season. Sampson’s two touchdowns gave up 17 on the season in just the seventh game.

After the two swapped punts to start the second half, Sampson ripped off runs of 13 and 36 yards to get the offense going on its 91-yard touchdown drive. He made a key block in pass protection to allow Nico Iamaleava to escape the pocket and scramble for 27 yards. Three plays later, Sampson powered in from 2 yards out to tie the game.

“I feel like D-Samp is one of the best running backs in the nation,” Vols wide receiver Dont’e Thornton Jr. said. Knowing that I have D-Samp in the backfield running the ball, every time I’m out there and it’s a run play, it makes me want to play even harder for him, because I know that if we ain’t got things going, D-Samp is going to get the ball in his hands and make something happen. So I just go out there and play hard for him.”

Sampson had an 8-yard run on the next series to move the chains on first-and-5, and after Iamaleava connected with Thornton for a 55-yard gain, he scored from 3 yards out to put the Vols in front in the third quarter.

“D-Samp a dog, man,” Iamaleava said. “Continues to be a dog and whenever I hand the ball off, I feel like it’s going to go score, and it’s good to have that confidence in a guy like that, for sure.”

Tennessee rode Sampson on its go-ahead drive, getting the football on four straight plays and totaling 23 yards, including runs on 10 and 8 yards, to set up Iamaleava’s winning touchdown pass to Chris Brazzell II.

“Epitomizes him as a competitor. … He’s special,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said. “Just feel, the ability to run, get out in space, get behind his pads. We blocked a little bit cleaner in the second half, gave him an opportunity to get started and created some plays. So resiliency from him, too. … He gets banged up a little bit and fumbles early, but just comes back and keeps competing. Huge part of the game tonight.”

Sampson had gone his first 283 carries at Tennessee without losing a fumble. (Pro Football Focus charged him with one last season.) On the turnover, Sampson had the football ripped out by Alabama defensive back Malachi Moore.

“Just got to put it behind me,” he said. “Similar situation this past week, it’s somebody on the offense taking their turn (making a mistake) while we’re having positives. We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot, but I couldn’t dwell on that. I had to be a leader for my team and I know everybody’s trying to be the spark plug. You can’t dwell on things like that. That’s what the film is for the next day. You go back and fix it, but coming out of halftime, we knew we had to get things going.”

Sampson said the offense improved its attention to detail, played with better tempo, held its blocking better and got in the zone in the run game.

He also described the tenor of the locker room at halftime after the defense again limited the damage while the offense did so much wrong.

“You don’t want to be angry, but it’s like you want to dwell on what we could have done,” Sampson said. “But we didn’t do it, so all we knew was our defense was playing their tails off. I can’t remember exactly what they had at halftime, the other team, but our defense held them to low points and we knew we was getting the ball back first. You can’t dwell on that. That’s a situation in a locker room where the energy can go down, but you have leaders walking around, explaining how we’re getting the ball back, how we’ve got to have the defense’s back. All we could do was move forward and worry about the next play.”

Sampson is part of the leadership that has powered Tennessee to 6-1 heading into its second open date, but his early mistake meant he had to center himself before influencing his teammates and getting them in the right frame of mind to bounce back from the tough first half.

“The main thing is you’ve got to be able to deal with yourself first before you could try to express it to other people, too,” Sampson said. “I have to be in the right mindset with myself, making sure I’m ready to go, making sure I’m bouncing back from plays that didn’t go right before I try to lead other people. So my thing is just stepping back and resetting with myself first, and I don’t have to be animated.

“I feel like I have a good sense of what people need and I know my players. I know my teammates, and I know how to approach different people. Everybody is different. That just comes with spending time with your teammates and just learning them, but something reciprocated, something got going, and there was still a lot of missed opportunities out there, but we found a way.”