SEC report

Vols’ Hyatt happy to be back home

Tennessee junior receiver Jalin Hyatt will have some extra incentive when the No. 5 Volunteers play at South Carolina on Saturday night.

It will be a homecoming game for Hyatt, who leads the SEC with 58 catches for 1,116 yards and a Tennessee-record 15 touchdowns.

Hyatt played at Dutch Fork High School in Irmo, S.C., which is 10 miles northwest of the South Carolina campus in Columbia.

Despite Hyatt being a 4-star prospect and ranked the nation’s No. 33 receiver by 247Sports, he wasn’t offered a scholarship by South Carolina or Clemson.

“I went to camps at Clemson and South Carolina just to showcase my skills,” Hyatt told ESPN.com reporter Chris Low earlier this season. “They just kept saying, ‘We’ll see. We’ll see.’ But nothing ever came of it.”

While Hyatt showed elite speed in camps, he was around 160 pounds and his lack of weight was a concern to Will Muschamp, the Gamecocks’ coach at the time who is now Georgia’s defensive coordinator.

“It sucked not getting an offer from your hometown school because I feel like they should be the first ones to offer,” Hyatt told ESPN. com. “But they never did, and I know why. Things work out the way they’re supposed to, and I’m glad they thought I was too small.

“It helped lead me here, and look at what all I would have missed.”

According to Low’s story, after Muschamp watched Hyatt run a 40-yard dash, he said, “Man, you’re fast, but you need to eat more peanut butter.”

Shane Beamer, in his second season as South Carolina’s coach, has stressed this week he was not leading the program when Hyatt wasn’t offered a scholarship.

At the time, Beamer was an assistant at Oklahoma for Lincoln Riley, who is now USC’s coach.

“Jalin Hyatt is a phenomenal football player,” Beamer said Tuesday at this weekly news conference. “I was coaching at the University of Oklahoma when he graduated and chose to go to Tennessee.

“I hope people know that. I have certainly heard from people about what an idiot I am that I didn’t recruit Jalin Hyatt.

“Blame Lincoln Riley at Southern Cal because we didn’t recruit him at Oklahoma and whoever else here. Certainly, he is a fantastic player. What a year he is having and what a threat he is outside on the perimeter also.”

Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker was asked if he thinks Hyatt has extra motivation for the South Carolina game.

“Yeah, for sure,” Hooker said. “J. Hyatt is playing very smart and savvy and it’s a cool thing to go home and have family and friends there and put on a show. So I’m excited to see him do his thing.”

Bennett for Burls

For the second consecutive year, Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett has been named one of three finalists for the Burlsworth Trophy, which is named in honor of Arkansas All-American offensive lineman Brandon Burlsworth and since 2010 has been presented to the country’s most outstanding player who began his career as a walkon.

Bennett, a sixth-year senior, took over as the Bulldogs’ starter last season when they won the national championship and he has helped them to a 10-0 start and No. 1 ranking this season.

“I’m proud of Stetson and what he represents, how he represents our university and our entire organization,” Georgia Coach Kirby Smart said Wednesday on the SEC coaches teleconference. “All the things he’s overcome, from being a walk-on to leading our team. He’s done a tremendous job, and it’s a tremendous honor to be recognized as a finalist for this award.”

The Burlsworth Trophy has gradually gained more attention, especially when Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield won it twice, but Smart said it probably doesn’t get enough recognition.

“Because I think there’s no greater story in any football program than for a kid that’s a walk-on to earn a scholarship,” Smart said. “Then to be acknowledged as a former walk-on and considered to be the best in the country to do it that way is one hell of an honor.

“It’s one of those things that’s hard to do, and there’s been some really good players to do it.

“Most of them are guys that had a chip on their shoulder and overcame a lot and most of them got told they weren’t good enough, because that’s why they were walk-ons. And they proved everybody wrong.

“I know Brandon was that way. Just a tremendous person the little time I got to know him.”

Before Smart went into coaching, he was an All-SEC defensive back at Georgia and signed as a free agent with the Indianapolis Colts after the 1998 NFL Draft.

When Smart went to mini-camp with the Colts in the spring of 1999, among the other rookies he met was Burlsworth, the team’s thirdround draft pick.

After the mini-camp, Burlsworth returned home and was killed in a car accident.

The Burlsworth Trophy was created by his family to keep his legacy alive.

Bennett could become the second SEC player to win the Burlsworth Trophy after Arkansas linebacker Grant Morgan won it last year.

Troy linebacker Carlton Martial joins Bennett as a repeat finalist this year. The third finalist is Purdue quarterback Aidan O’Connell.

The finalists will be honored and the winner of the Burlsworth Trophy winner announced on Dec. 5 at Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville.

Bennett has completed 223 of 329 passes for 2,895 yards and 14 touchdowns this season and rushed 35 times for 144 yards and 7 touchdowns.

Dandy Vandy

After Vanderbilt lost Clark Lea’s first 13 SEC games as coach, the Commodores won 24-21 at Kentucky last Saturday.

It broke a 26-game SEC losing streak by the Commodores, who won their first conference game since Oct. 19, 2019, when they beat Missouri 21-14 at home.

Vanderbilt hadn’t won an SEC road game since beating the University of Arkansas 45-31 on Oct. 27, 2018, at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.

“I’m proud of all of the guys,” Lea said in an emotional postgame interview with the SEC Network in which he fought back tears. “They earned that.

“They just kept fighting. When you stay in the fight and you believe, good things happen and they were able to make it happen in the end.”

Lea, who played fullback at Vanderbilt, was the defensive coordinator from 2018-20 at Notre Dame, where he worked for Brian Kelly.

“I’m really excited for Clark,” said Kelly, in his first season as LSU’s coach. “We stay in touch.

“Look, building a program is hard, and you have to be able to stick with your process, and he has. They’re starting to see that begin to pay off.”

Vanderbilt got its first SEC road victory over a ranked team — Kentucky was No. 24 in the College Football Playoff poll — since 2007 when the Commodores won 17-6 at No. 6 South Carolina.

No letting up

Tennessee Coach Josh Heupel put in his backups in the fourth quarter with the Volunteers holding a 28-point lead over Missouri, but he didn’t play conservatively on offense.

Second-team quarterback Joe Milton threw a 46-yard touchdown pass to Ramel Keyton with 5:43 left to push Tennessee’s lead to 59-24.

After the Vols forced a punt and got the ball back, Milton threw deep again to Squirrel White for a 58-yard gain to the Missouri 1 with 1:28 left.

Heupel took a timeout, then ran Dylan Sampson twice, with him scoring a touchdown with 36 seconds for the final 66-24 margin.

At least Heupel didn’t go for a 2-point conversion, as Ohio State Coach Woody Hayes once did with a big lead against Michigan.

Missouri Coach Eli Drinkwitz naturally was asked after the game about Heupel running up the score.

“He coaches his team, I coach my team,” Drinkwitz said. “So it’s our job to defend what they do. He runs his offense the way they’ve always run it.

“I’ve got no issues with their football team and what they do. That’s up to each individual head coach and he was just running his offense. I’m good. … It’s our job to flip the switch. It’s our job to not let that happen. It’s my job.”

The subject came up at Heupel’s Monday news conference when he was asked if he considered taking a knee at the Missouri 1 rather than try to score again.

“For us, at the end of the day, our twos were in the football game when the ball went down to the 1-yard line or whatever it was,” Heupel said. “It absolutely went through my mind [to take a knee], but I don’t know what the right thing to do is in that moment.

“At the end of the day, our guys continue to play football.”

Rick Neuheisel, a former college coach who was the CBS color analyst for the Missouri-Tennessee game, said the Vols’ late touchdowns should be motivation for Drinkwitz.

“Eli Drinkwitz files that away,” Neuheisel said Monday at the Knoxville Quarterback Club. “We’ll see if that ever comes back to haunt [Heupel].”

Heupel probably isn’t too worried about Missouri considering that in two meetings his Vols have outscored the Tigers 128-48 and gained 1,407 yards.

No gumbo?

LSU players drank chicken broth on the sideline during the Tigers’ game at Arkansas last Saturday to stay hydrated and warm with temperatures in the 30s at kickoff.

Tigers Coach Brian Kelly said it was the idea of Matt Frakes, LSU’s assistant athletic director for sports nutrition.

“Dr. Frakes is our nutritionist and he’s always looking for ways to get our guys to handle the elements,” Kelly said. “We’ve had some guys cramping, even in the cold weather. So getting the sodium in their system [from the broth] is important, and then obviously it’s warm.

“It’s one of those things he’s researched and we thought it would be a good thing for our guys at the time.”

Kelly, like former Arkansas basketball standout Pat Bradley, is from Everett, Mass., a suburb of Boston.

“I prefer clam chowder,” Kelly said jokingly when asked about the chicken broth. “But they weren’t going to go with the New England style.”

Not since 1970

Fortunately for reeling Texas A&M, the Aggies get a break from SEC play Saturday when they face Massachusetts.

The Minutemen (1-9) lost at Arkansas State 35-33 last week and are 33.5-point underdogs against the Aggies (3-7), who haven’t won since beating Arkansas 23-21 on Sept. 24.

Texas A&M’s six-game losing streak is its longest since 1972. The Aggies haven’t lost seven in a row since 1970 when they finished 2-9.

(AP/Wade Payne) Tennessee wide receiver Jalin Hyatt, who leads the SEC in receptions, receiving yards and touchdown catches, was not recruited by South Carolina, his hometown team.