Dylan Sampson ran rampant for a Tennessee football single-season record 1,491 yards a season ago. The year before, it was Jaylen Wright scrambling for a 7.4-yard-per-carry average to lead all SEC running backs.
But with a changing of the guards, the Vols will be reliant on a three-man rotation that has been unfolding throughout fall camp. Duke transfer Star Thomas, homegrown DeSean Bishop and speedy Peyton Lewis form a trifecta of backs that running backs coach De’Rail Sims can only compliment, because of the way they complement each other.
“It’s a good problem because I think competition never lets you be complacent,” Sims said. “We talk about it all the time. Good is the enemy of great. So when you got a whole room … they don’t want to take a backseat to anybody.”
And the eagerness exists throughout the room. It can be problematic in the NIL era when there is no clear-cut starting spot up for grabs.
That doesn’t matter to the Vols’ ball carriers.
“With all the running backs, I mean, I feel like ain’t nobody you can miss with, no matter who you play,” Lewis said. “So it’s like, this person goes in, whoever it is — Bishop, Star, (Justin Baker), (Duane Morris), me, Hunter (Barnes) — it doesn’t matter. You get this, you’re going to get the same thing next time. We’re just coming out raw every time.”
It’s a battle of experienced bodies. Bishop and Lewis were key pieces in the relief of Sampson’s record-breaking 2024 season. Bishop was the No. 2 back, rushing for 455 yards in 10 games of action, missing three games due to injury.
That left Lewis as the third option, where he was bumped up during Bishop’s absences. His opportunities were limited as a true freshman, putting up 339 yards — but he earned an expanded role against Ohio State in the College Football Playoff when Sampson registered 16 snaps due to a lingering hamstring injury. Lewis took advantage with 77 yards on 10 carries.
With an offseason of growth under his belt, it has been all about comfort on the field.
“When you’re a freshman, you see it, it’s like,’ oh my God, I’m playing in Neyland,” Lewis said. “Now it’s like, ‘OK, we’re going out there playing football. I do that every day.’ That’s how I like to see it.”
As for Bishop, he’s still the same head-down worker he’s been since he arrived as a walk-on in the fall of 2023. His role is yet to be determined with the battle in the backfield, but it should see an expansion in starts without Sampson.
He comes back as the most experienced backfield in the playbook, and that adds value to the rushing attack that Tennessee puts forth.
“He’s the same person every day, like, literally, every day, he’s the same person, come in, going to work hard,” Thomas said of Bishop. “You know what you going to get out of him every day, and he push everybody in the room.”
Meanwhile, Thomas adds the most collegiate experience as a fifth-year graduate transfer with stops at Duke and New Mexico State. He spent last season as the feature back for the Blue Devils, compiling 871 rushing yards and 153 receiving yards.
Sims says he is a complete back and is now comfortable in the offense after arriving in the spring. But that adjustment is something he had to work out at home this summer.
“When we went home over break, I took a lot of time to study, like by myself and just like go over the tracks and stuff on the field and just get my sister — somebody that I can get to like do the signals over — and just learn like that,” Thomas said.
The three backs are going to be responsible for holding Tennessee football at a standard with the ground game. The Vols have led the SEC in rushing yards back-to-back seasons now and produced All-SEC selections in Sampson and Wright.
Lewis sees that as the next challenge.
“The ground is the standard. The ceiling is where we need to be,” Lewis said. “So I see it as two guys in front of me, All-SEC, why not me?”
The trio will wrap up fall camp this week, before opening next week with mock game prep before kicking off the season on August 30 against Syracuse.
