Princeton Fant’s three TDs, and how Heupel and Tennessee's offense is playing to the TE’s strengths

I’ve been critical of Tennessee’s senior tight end Princeton Fant numerous times this year. He had three drops last year, and he’s had three drops through seven games this season, too, on just 18 targets. I’m not a big math guy, but even I can see that drop percentage ain’t great.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s take a brief trip down memory lane. Fant is a sixth-year, redshirt-senior, who was a member of the 2017 recruiting class (247 lists his lead recruiters listed as Zach Azzani and Tommy Thigpen). He was listed as a 6-foot-2, 205-pound wide receiver from LaVergne HS in middle Tennessee. He was also listed as a 3-star prospect and the 32nd-best player in Tennessee that recruiting cycle.

Fant’s seen four head coaches (if you count Brady Hoke’s tenure as interim HC ) during his six years at UT, as Butch Jones’ staff recruited, signed and, I think, practiced him at running back during his 2017 redshirt freshman season. Pruitt’s staff kept him in the backfield for the 2018 campaign, during which Fant played in two games and logged three carries for seven yards in mop-up duty against ETSU.

He was moved to TE after the 2018 season but didn’t log his first TD catch until 2020 — his RS-junior season. From 2019 through 2021, Fant notched 30 catches for 338 yards and two TDs. To make matters worse — as I mentioned earlier — the last two seasons he’s caught a case of the dropsies. He’s just never made quite the impact in the passing game a team would like to see out of its long-tenured tight end.

But in 2021, when Josh Heupel took over, we started to see a shift in Fant’s usage. He logged seven snaps in the backfield from 2018-2020 (five of those came in 2018 — the season before he was moved to tight end — but then in Heupel’s first season as coach, Fant lined up behind the line of scrimmage 129 times. We’re seeing more of the same this year, as he’s been in the backfield for 78 snaps through the Vols’ first seven contests of 2022.

This year, we’ve seen Heupel find ways to get Fant the ball, outside of just throwing to him as a tight end. We saw the shovel pass against Alabama go for a two-point conversion — the same one, I think, we saw run against LSU. Heupel’s added some stuff to the playbook that wasn’t there last year.

And on Saturday, against UT Martin, I think we saw more of that manifestation of a coaching staff scheming around a player’s strengths and attempting to put that player in the best possible position to succeed. Let’s take a gander at some of the ways they used Fant against the Skyhawks, and how it became a career day for a guy who’s definitely earned a bit of time in the limelight.

According to PFF’s notoriously-critical numbers, Fant is a much better pass blocker than he is run blocker. He’s Tennessee’s second-best pass blocker (among Vols who’ve logged at least 200 pass-block stats) with a 71.3 grade, but then he grades out at 49.6 as a run blocker. Ouch.

Obviously, the level of competition is worth mentioning here, but he had a good day run blocking Saturday. That might mean something, and it might mean nothing. But regardless, it gives opposing coaches more looks/ plays/ setups to worry about.

On Tennessee’s first drive, we see Fant lined up in the backfield, sorta as what’s referred to as the H-Back position (behind the line of scrimmage, but not as deep as the QB or the RB). It’s an RPO play, meaning the QB has the option to hand the ball off or throw to a WR, based on what he sees from the defense. Fant is circled in red and takes a couple steps to his right to hit the hole as a blocked in case the ball gets handed off. But I imagine, pretty much everybody on this offense recognizes the soft coverage from UT Martin and knows Hooker is gonna make the throw to the near sideline.

Here’s the full play:

With Tennessee’s offense, they’re going so quick and not substituting players, so that they can create advantageous matchups, where the defense doesn’t have its ideal personnel on the field. But that means you’ll see the same offensive players lined up, just in different spots depending on the play call.

The next play (I think) Fant finds the outside LB or nickel back maybe — I’m not sure — and seals the edge. I don’t know if that what he was supposed to do, but boy was there some green grass that direction had Small cut back to his right.

Here’s that full play, and the following play:

On the second play, you see Fant crush the LB and help open up an enormous hole for Jabari Small.

And what a block from Darnell Wright, too. Goodness.

Tennessee eventually punched this in for six points on a one-yard TD run.

Now, on the Vols’ next offensive possession, it was Jacob Warren in as the tight end for every play of the drive until the final few near the goal line. Warren is the tight end that’s more likely to be split out wide or be in the slot, although he doesn’t get many targets in the passing game, either.

After a 38-yard throw-and-catch from Hendon Hooker to Ramel Keyton that put Tennessee at UT Martin’s one-yard line, the Vols tried a Dylan Sampson run from the shotgun that went for no gain. But on second down, we saw that wrinkle I talked about earlier, Princeton Fant in the backfield, pay off for his first rushing TD of the game.

One complaint lotsa folks had about last season’s team was the short-yardage play calling. This system is primarily run out of the shot gun, but on goal-line plays, or instances when some power is needed on third-or-fourth-and-shorts, putting the entirety of the offensive backfield five-to-seven yards behind the line scrimmage seems like it inherently puts the offense at a disadvantage. But this season, we’ve seen Tennessee line up with Hooker under center, in more traditional formations, like the offset I-formation you’re gonna see below.

I don’t know enough about football to tell you exactly what’s going on here, but it looks like there’s two decoy actions going on: the jet sweep and the (maybe) option play from Hooker to the RB. And amongst all the chaos, Fant simply jabs to his right to sell the decoy(s) and then cuts up field to take the handoff into the endzone for a touchdown.

Here’s the full play so that folks who understand the game better than me can tell us what’s actually happening.

Tennessee’s next offensive possession went 77 yards in 13 plays, and Fant did catch a 17-yard pass for a first down on a third-and-three situation. But why Heupel is moving Fant around and using him as more than exclusively as a tight end — his drops.

This ball was maybe a little high, and had some juice on it, but Fant can’t hang onto what would have been a walk-in TD.

A Skyhawks’ penalty put the Vols in position for a Hooker-to-Keyton, eight-yard TD pass a play later, but you can see the frustration in Fant’s body language. It didn’t cost Tennessee anything here, but that kinda drop against UK or UGA could be the difference in a win or a loss.

That last TD gave the Vols a 21-7 lead after one period, and Tennessee just absolutely declawed the Skyhawks in the second quarter by putting up four TDs and a field goal. Hyatt and Keyton both scored, again, but the final two TDs of the Vols’ second-quarter decimation belonged to Fant.

A 49-yard pass to Squirrel White put UT in the redzone, and two plays later, we saw Fant score another rushing touchdown out of the backfield. This time, it’s not a goal-line play, but it is third-and-one. And I’m pretty sure we see the exact same play Tennessee used on Fant’s first rushing TD, except this time Fant cuts back to the near sideline and walks in untouched for six points.

Those are some running back/ full back-like instincts from Fant there, seeing the middle was jammed up and busting out to the open field to his left.

Now, of course, the pièce de ré·sis·tance to Fant’s day was his third and final touchdown— the double pass from Joe Milton, to Fant, who then airs it out to Hyatt while taking a LICK from a UT Martin defender.

Credit to Hyatt for the concentration — as he nearly dropped the ball more than once. But this time, we see Fant lined up beside the QB, just like a running back would be in a typical shotgun formation. Except Jabari Small is also back there, so one would assume Fant is in there as a blocker. But then Small motions out of the back field just barely pre-snap, and I think he was actually the one who was supposed to be blocking for Fant. The ball’s snapped, Fant takes a couple sideways steps to his right, Milton tosses it over to him, and then Fant uncorks a pass that travels about 40 yards in the air to Hyatt, who’s as wide open as the door to your house when your mom used to ask if you were trying to cool the whole neighborhood.

At this point, the Vols are up 45-7 with just a few minutes left in the second quarter, so there was certainly no reason for Hooker to still be in the game. There’s also really no reason to be running double-passes up 45-7, or tossing passes into the endzone on the final play of a 41-point win with the fourth-string QB in the game.

Fox Sports Radio, or Fan Run Radio’s @Jon__Reed posited that maybe Heupel was sending a message to UT Martin Head Coach Jason Simpson, who’s five-star son, native Tennesseean son, Ty Simpson, picked Alabama over Tennessee and many others when he committed back in February of 2021. I didn’t see the post-game coach’s handshake, but I’ve heard it wasn’t the normal “let’s shake hands and congratulate each other,” kinda moment. Not that any of that is really relevant to this article, but it’s just something I found... interesting.

Whatever, either way, it seems like the way Heupel’s staff is using Fant is a positive for both sides, which, at the end of the day, is all one can really ask for.