UT collars the Owls in its third game of the season.

Kennesaw State has never played Tennessee before. After Saturday night, they may not be in a hurry to schedule the rematch.

The Owls did, however, leave Knoxville $1.05 million richer. That is the guarantee Tennessee is paying Conference USA’s defending champion to fill a September date at Neyland Stadium. Furman collected $500,000 two weeks ago for the same privilege and the same 9-point final. The Owls at least made the Vols work a little longer for the 42-9 result.

UT Vols working the Kennesaw Owls.

Jerry Mack coached running backs on Josh Heupel’s staff from 2021-23. He built a 10-4 Conference USA title team in his first year at Kennesaw State. Heupel called him authentic, organized, and a leader of men. All of that may be true. It did not keep the Owls out of the path of a 268-yard rushing night by the Big Orange.

While a finance lesson and a coaching tree reunion are worthwhile university endeavors, most readers prefer an actual write-up about the football game, so here we go.

Neyland was dressed for Salute to Service. A listed 101,915 showed up on a September Saturday that closed the nonconference books and opened the door to No. 1 Texas next week. The Vols (3-0) were short-handed and a little sloppy in the first half, then found the ground game that has defined the first three weeks of the 2026 Heupel team.

DeSean Bishop punched in from three yards at 11:32 of the first quarter. Daniel Kinney, the Bearden High product now kicking for the visitors, answered with a 35-yard field goal.

Tennessee led 7-3 and looked, for a few snaps, like a team that had one eye on next Saturday.

UT band and cheerleaders.

Then Faizon Brandon found Braylon Staley for 13 yards and a touchdown with 26 seconds left in the first. Tight end Luca Wolf took the extra point snap in a swinging-gate look and ran it in. 15-3. That little piece of trickery was the evening’s most entertaining special teams moment, and it settled the house.

Cooper Ranvier added field goals of 40 and 43 yards in the second quarter. Halftime: 21-3. Continuity was missing. Bishop left with what looked like a lower-body injury in the second and returned in the third. Javin Gordon and Justin Baker were already out. Tight end Ethan Davis is gone for the year with an ACL injury. The Vols were playing with a thinner roster than the scoreboard suggested.

The third quarter belonged to Daune Morris. The sophomore back ripped off a 42-yard touchdown - the night’s longest play from scrimmage - and finished with a career-high 116 yards on 14 carries. Brandon later scrambled in from five yards. 35-3. Eight of the ten plays on that scoring drive were runs. Tennessee finished with 268 rushing yards and 446 total yards.

Hunter Barnes, a fifth-year former walk-on from Memphis who has been on the roster since 2022, scored the first touchdown of his career from three yards out with 8:49 left. The offensive line walked him in. 42-6 after Kinney’s second field goal of the night. Kinney added a third, from 25, and that was the final: 42-9.

Brandon was 18-of-26 for 178 yards and a touchdown through the air, plus 47 yards and a score on the ground. He did not have to be spectacular. He had to be clean enough. Staley led the receivers with four catches for 59 yards. Barnes added 63 yards on seven carries. Rickie Collins threw for 189 yards for the Owls, who were held to 102 rushing yards and never reached the end zone.

Mack’s postgame was what you would expect from a man who used to work this building. “It’s not the result we wanted, but the way we competed against a Top 15 team in the nation, there’s much growth from that game that we can take.” Fair enough. Three field goals is competing. It is not scoring.

Heupel will not call this a tuneup. He said as much all week. The tape will show penalties that still need to disappear, a first half that lacked rhythm, and a defense that kept the Owls out of the paint. It will also show a backfield that can survive when Bishop is limited and a freshman quarterback who has now accounted for multiple scores in three straight wins.

Next Saturday at noon, Texas comes to Checker Neyland on ABC. The Longhorns are 3-0 and sitting at No. 1. That is not a payday game. That is the reason the September schedule is built this way.


TOM'S TAKEAWAYS

• The swinging gate two-point conversion was pure Heupel. Luca Wolf running it in after Staley’s touchdown was the kind of small sample joy that makes a 42-9 night feel like a show instead of a chore.

• Daune Morris is no longer a pleasant surprise. 116 yards and a 42-yard score with Bishop dinged up is the definition of next-man-up in this offense. The Vols have rushed for well over 200 yards in all three games.

• Hunter Barnes’ first career touchdown was the night’s human-interest winner. Five years on the roster, former walk-on, Memphis kid, punched in by the bigs up front. Those are the snaps that keep a locker room honest.

• Kennesaw State’s Daniel Kinney of Knoxville's Bearden High kicked three field goals in the stadium was their entire scoring column.

• Jerry Mack vs. Josh Heupel was the subplot that mattered to people who follow staff trees. Mack’s Owls competed. They did not threaten. There is a difference, and Texas will not care about the difference.

• Nonconference work is finished: Furman 56-9, Georgia Tech 45-24, Kennesaw State 42-9. Combined score: 143-42. The test that actually counts arrives at noon next Saturday. Pack a lunch. The Longhorns will.