DeSean Bishop ran for 147 and the Vols made a statement in Atlanta.

Tennessee 45, Georgia Tech 24. The Vols went into Atlanta on a Saturday night and dropped 45 on a Yellow Jackets team that had been getting hype all offseason. Heupel offense back. Volunteer fans breathing again.

DeSean Bishop was the story. 147 rushing yards. Two touchdowns. The kind of night that gets you talked about in NFL scouting rooms. He ran through the Georgia Tech defensive front like it was practice. When you can run the ball that easy against a Power 4 defense in Week 3, you have a real offense.

Faizon Brandon is the other story. Freshman quarterback. Two touchdown passes. Looked exactly like a five-star recruit who spent the offseason getting reps against Tennessee's defense in practice. This is a kid who is going to be a household name by November.

There is a hitter in there somewhere.

Dejuan Lane put the game away in the third quarter with a 41-yard pick-six on Alberto Mendoza. That was the moment Georgia Tech coach Brent Key had to take a knee on the sideline and accept it. Tennessee jumped ahead and never looked back.

Georgia Tech is going to be fine. Their offensive line looked overmatched, but Haynes King is still a real quarterback. This is a Yellow Jackets team that will be in a bowl game and probably will beat a couple of ACC contenders. Just not this week.

HARD HAT AND LUNCH PAIL FOR ROCKY TOP. Josh Heupel now has a top-eight team on a trajectory to be in the playoff picture in November if the schedule breaks right. Freshman quarterback in a Power 4 offense with real skill players around him. That is a recipe.

The SEC East has been a mess for a decade. Tennessee is a real contender in it for the first time in a long time. Georgia is still Georgia. But the Vols now look like a team that could go into Athens in November and steal one. That is a sentence Tennessee fans have not been able to say in years.

What this means

Tennessee is a top-eight team and Josh Heupel has this offense back to peak Heupel form. That is bad news for the rest of the SEC. Peak Heupel means you cannot line up in a base defense against this team and expect to survive. The Vols averaged 45 points a game last time this offense was cooking. Right now it is cooking.

Faizon Brandon is real. A freshman quarterback who can process an SEC defense in Week 3 is the rarest thing in college football. Brandon has an arm. He has poise. He has a coaching staff that has been building this system for a decade. He is going to be a household name by November.

What's next

The SEC East is available. Tennessee has a chance to be the second-best team in the conference behind Georgia, which is the highest ceiling Vols fans have talked about since the Peyton Manning era. They are not the best team in the SEC. They are the second-best team in the SEC. That is the Rocky Top pitch.

Georgia Tech has to figure out how to be a bowl team from here. This is not a program falling off. This is a program that got beaten by a team playing better football on Saturday. Brent Key is going to right the ship. But the ACC race is going to run through Miami and Clemson and Florida State this year, not Atlanta.