10 things I think I think

Tennessee returns home licking their wounds from a disappointing loss at Florida where the second quarter was a disaster on a night where Tennessee hurt themselves and struggled in the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. This week, Tennessee looks to find their footing after two weeks of offensive shortcomings and defensive struggles as they host UTSA. We empty the notebook on plenty of uncertainties heading into week four with 10 things I think I think

Lay off the candy

There’s plenty of things that must get better for this team on both sides of the ball. For the Vol defense it starts with stopping the run. Florida ran for 183 yards including a 62 yard touchdown run and 135 of those yards came in the disastrous first half.

The other issue for the linebackers was the passing stuff over the middle. Something Florida did as well as Austin-Peay to a degree to disrupt the defense was a lot of motions and shifts pre-snap, or ‘eye candy’ if you will. The result was guys were out of position making it harder to make plays.

“The motions and the shifts, which we worked on, they had a couple of new ones, but it’s all, we call it eye candy. They want to take your eyes off your keys,” linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary said. “And we did get caught a couple times with the eyes in the wrong spot because they do so much. But like I said, there’s no excuses.
“We knew the formation, knew they were gonna shift motion of time. And the ones that we did fit right, they were able to take advantage of. But if you did it, if they did it 30 times and you fit it right 25 times, you guys remember the five you didn’t. And that’s what happened.”

This is not breaking news here, but Tennessee is going to see plenty of shifts and motions by future opponents until they show that it doesn’t get them out of sorts.

Speed it up

Tennessee’s offense lacks rhythm; it’s been unsettled in the first half. Maybe that’s all Joe Milton’s fault and ultimately that’s where the problem lines, but I think they need to go faster on offense.

I think there’s too much ‘check with me’ at the line of scrimmage and too much trying to get to the right play. In two seasons, I don’t remember Tennessee having to call time out because the play clock was expiring. Saturday night they had to burn two times outs during the first possession of the second half.

Tennessee’s tempo has slowed down in the red zone all year going back to the first drive against Virginia. I don’t know if it’s a case of trying to be too perfect with a play call or what, but the lack of tempo means defenses aren’t getting stressed and taxed as much and it’s hurting Tennessee’s rhythm on offense.

It just feels like this offense needs to be going faster

“For us, like the efficiency of our tempo, we don’t ever put a stopwatch to it. It’s just how the bodies are moving. Our ability to communicate, get lined up, get our cleats in the ground, identify who we’re targeting, and all 11 guys operate in sync. You gotta be able to do that. We didn’t do it well enough, obviously, on Saturday night,” head coach Josh Heupel said.

Get them off your lawn

It’s simple, getting off the field on third down has been a point of emphasis for this defense for well over a year. With the new clock rules it’s more imperative than ever. And Tennessee was awful at it at Florida.

I think Tennessee’s pass rush with the front four has been more productive, but Saturday they got blocked and Tennessee is still poor in zone coverage. I don’t think Tim Banks is where he has been in terms of having to blitz on third down all the time, but this defense isn’t good enough to play zone every third down expecting your front four to affect the quarterback.

Tennessee has to remain aggressive on third down with some pressure packages because they have to get off the field on third down. It was a disaster down at Florida.

Finish drives

Lack of pace, lack of execution, self-inflicted wounds and the result is a lack of points. Tennessee was perfect in the redzone against Virginia going 7-for-7 with seven touchdowns. They had just two touchdowns in six trips against Austin-Peay. They had one TD in two trips at Florida.

Tennessee has to finish better in the red zone but also in short yardage situations. The Vols failed on 4th and 1 against Virginia, Austin-Peay and Florida. A season ago they were good in short yardage situations. This season they haven’t been. Heupel said it’s simply a lack of execution. I think you could also say it’s a lack of creativity as well.

Tennessee must finish better offensively.

Tackle

Week one tackling was solid. The Vols had seven missed tackles which is not bad at all for a season opening game. In fact it was worthy of accolades. In week two against Austin-Peay the tackling was worse. In week two, they had 10 missed tackles with six of those misses by defensive backs.

In week three, they missed 11 tackles and 10 of them came from defensive backs.

Overall Tennessee has to tackle better, but the defensive backs must really improve quickly in tackling in space something they work on every day.

But 21 missed tackles the last two weeks is too many.

“Defensively, there were a couple times where we got out of our gap,” Heupel said. “And when I say out of our gap, not that we’re completely missing our gap, just we’re behind. And so your linebacker being a step behind allows that double team to be thicker on the climb up on the second level and you create a vertical seam. And when I talk about the game being played in margins, those are the subtle details that I’m talking about. That happened on the defensive side of the ball and the offensive side of the ball. It’s not a complete wholesale change. We just have to be more efficient in what we’re doing. The tackling issues in particular in the first half, some poor fundamentals and a couple times were the effort’s not very good.”

This is a matter of communication and execution. There’s no reason that a defensive front with a 3 or 4 man rush should be disrupting the pocket against 6 and even 7 man protections.

Win versus numbers

Milton has only been sacked three times this season which is not a bad number at all, but he’s been pressured more than that.

But it’s not just pass protection that’s an issue against a light box. Against Florida, Tennessee couldn’t create any creases in the run game to make the Gator defense pay for having a light box.

Tennessee is going to play better defenses throughout the season and definitely better defensive fronts. If Tennessee can’t run the football against a light box, then they aren’t going to see much man-to-man on the outside in the passing game and it’s very obvious how much more productive this passing game is against man coverage than they are zone coverage.

If teams can throttle the run enough and disrupt the passing game enough without having to commit extra guys to the box then it’s going to be a really challenging season offensively.

Stop making it harder

Twenty penalties in the last eight quarters of football is too many and for where this offense is at right now, it’s difficult for them to overcome going backwards.

Let’s be clear here, penalties are not a new thing. Last year Tennessee averaged eight penalties a game, but it was never an issue because they were so explosive offensively they could overcome miscues. They had over a 100 yards of penalties in the rout at LSU. In year one, they averaged right at seven penalties a game.

But they have to limit the pre-snap penalties and stop putting themselves behind the chains and stopping the clock which takes them out of tempo.

“Yeah, you look at it offensively in particular, self-inflicted wounds, that can be penalties, that can be unforced errors, it can be communication. Our percentage is way too high. It was on Saturday and it really was the week before too. That’s why you move the ball at times, but you don’t have very many points. And we have to clean that up. You can’t beat yourself,” Heupel said.

We are going to start to learn about this team’s leadership

Everyone is disappointed in last week and for good reason. Tennessee played poorly on both sides of the ball in a big game against a team that’s not as good/talented as teams on the upcoming schedule. So the disappointment is certainly justified.

The loss isn’t the end to the season and the question is how does this team respond to the loss and to not playing well the last two weeks? Josh Heupel has bragged about this team’s mindset and work since the bowl win last year. He’s bragged about the leadership on the team. That leadership now faces it’s first test.

It’s easy to lead when things are going well, but how good is your leadership when dealing with some adversity and disappointment? We are going to start finding out. I don’t have any reason to believe this team won’t respond the right way. Each of the last two years, Heupel’s teams have grown and improved all season long. To be the team they expected and others expect them to be, they have to get better which means leadership in the locker room is paramount.

SEC Update

Cheering on his teammates and not pouting has landed Jalen Milroe back in the starting line up for Alabama as the search for answers in Tuscaloosa continues. It’s certainly been an odd start to the year for the Tide. They host Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin has done all he can to help with drama for Nick Saban by suggesting his old boss has demoted defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. Regardless, the Tide is struggling in the line of scrimmage and is again struggling with penalties especially on defense.

This may not be a ‘get your popcorn ready’ game, but there’s plenty of wonder about the state of affairs in Tuscaloosa.

Elsewhere in the league, Auburn is fortunate to be 3-0 and their fortune is likely to run out this week as they travel to Texas A&M. The Tigers can’t score and struggle to run the ball. A&M’s defensive front should cause the Plainsmen plenty of problems.

Kentucky moves to 4-0 this week with a win over Vanderbilt. The ‘Cats host Florida next week at noon as they have Florida and Georgia back-to-back.

Georgia and Florida have relaxing days as they host UAB and Charlotte respectively.

South Carolina hosts Mississippi State in a key game for both teams. South Carolina was impressive defensively at Georgia, but just couldn’t finish. State no-showed at home against LSU.

Missouri coming off a huge win at home against Kansas State travels to St. Louis to take on Memphis. I don’t think Memphis can pull off the upset but this one has the makings of a challenging day for Missouri coming off a big win.

Finally, Arkansas coming off a big time disappointing loss to BYU, travels to LSU for a night game. Yikes. Tigers seem to have found themselves a bit after their second half collapse in the season opener against Florida State. Tigers big.

Remember the time

I’m not going to go back deep into the archives on this one. Two years ago, Tennessee fell at Florida on a night where they scored just 14 points. They struggled to protect and the offense struggled to get going because of some self-inflicted wounds like dropped passes and over throws.

The next week, Tennessee came out and embarrassed Missouri at Missouri 62-24. That was the true start of the Heupel era at Tennessee. The Vols are obviously looking to get their offense going and dictating things to defenses starting this week with UTSA coming to town.

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