Auburn football: Rematch with Tennessee gives the Tigers a perfect chance for revenge

The Volunteers struggled to run the ball last season as they ranked 12th in the conference with 144.15 rushing yards per game and ranked second-to-last with only 13 total rushing TDs for the year.

The team was never really able to establish a clear No. 1 back as they had three players receive over 100 carries last season. Unfortunately, one of those players, Tim Jordan, who ranked second on the team with 104 carries, was dismissed from the team in June following an arrest on gun and drug charges.

On the bright side, the Vols do return their two leading rushers from last season in Ty Chandler and Eric Gray who ran for 655 yards and 539 yards last season respectively.

Either Gray or Chandler could emerge as the team’s starter next season but Chandler also led the team in rushing back in 2018 and as a senior, has an experience advantage over the sophomore Gray.

However, Gray had an absolute monster breakout game last season against rival Vanderbilt when he ran the ball 25 times for 246 yards and two touchdowns so that clear talent may be enough to overtake Chandler.

Nonetheless, we should probably see another year of the Vols sharing carries between their backs as the team also returns veteran RB Carlin Fils-Aime after he took a redshirt year in 2019.