- Brandon Turnage had a day — As the game was happening, I thought Turnage had a solid day. He was flying to the ball and filled the stat sheet. Upon rewatch, Turnage was really even better. He did a nice job leveraging the ball. There was a screen in the first quarter where Turnage got blocked but he held outside leverage forcing the receiver back inside to where help was. If Turnage gets blocked and doesn’t hold the outside edge then it’s a bigger play.
2. Downfield blocking deserves some praise — I should have mentioned this last week because this team blocked well down field at Missouri. They blocked well again on the perimeter on Saturday. Tennessee’s receiver screens are only effective if the receivers not getting the ball do their job and they have been doing that. Throw the tight ends in there as well. If you watch the end around to Velus Jones, Princeton Fant gets a really nice block out in space. Blocking in open space is not the easiest thing to do. Tennessee has done it well especially the last two weeks and they have been doing it penalty free.
3. Hooker is obviously dealing — Austin has spoke for months about you keep taking quarterbacks to you get it right and all of us have talked about how quarterback play either accelerates or stunts the building process. Hooker is accelerating the process. Since becoming a starter, Hooker is completing right at 70% of his throws. He has the highest qb rating in the SEC. His numbers overall are really good. His first half numbers are crazy good. In the last 4 first halves, Hooker has 696 yards, 10 TD’s and 0 INT’s.
If you wanted to be critical of Hooker, it’s hard to find much. I thought he missed a TD throw to Cedric Tillman on the play before the TD pass to Jalin Hyatt. Then at the end of the first half, I thought he should have thrown the ball away instead of scrambling on back to back plays. If he had thrown the ball away they would have had another snap before having to settle for a field goal.
But overall, you can’t find any critical fault with Hooker’s play. He’s tempo continues to improve. He’s not putting the ball in harms way and his play is what has accelerated this teams play and the fans’ expectations.
4. What were you thinking pt. 1 —Tennessee rolled into the half time locker room with 373 yards of offense and 38 points. It was cruise control. The offense converted 8 of 9 third downs and scored touchdowns in their first four possessions. They had everyone in the press box scrambling through record books. But the second half wasn’t pretty. And the first two possession on offense were a mess.
On the first possession on 3rd and 1, Tiyon Evans was stopped for no gain. Hendon Hooker wasn’t happy walking off the field as something was not right. I don’t know what it was but they were in an overload look to the short side of the field. They flipped Cade Mays to the left side next to Darnell Wright and then ran away from those two. It just looked off.
Then they punted but had to call timeout before the kick because they only had 10 men on the field.
On the second down play of the second series, there was a protection issue as they left a blitzer unblocked. Not sure if that’s on the running back in blitz pick up. They appeared to not have a hot route on and Hooker had no where to go with the ball.
Not sure what was said or done at the half. Maybe they all ate turkey but they were not very focused to start the second half.
5. What were you thinking pt. 2 — Let’s get this one out of the way. I get it that Tennessee has struggled with the half back pass, but good grief can we say too many meetings when the trick play meant you had a defensive end playing fullback who was going to be the guy throwing the ball. Strange personnel first of all. And secondly just because it’s on the play sheet doesn’t mean you have to run it and why run it then. Carolina was on a 9 play 73 yard drive where they had runs of 22, 3, 3, ,11, 9, 3, -1. They had the defense on their heels and a score there would have made it 14-7. Instead it was an interception and 5 plays later the score was 21-0.
6. Unforseen production —The last 8 quarters Aaron Beasley has 17 tackles. He had 14 the first four games. Beasley is settling in nicely as Tennessee’s starter. He’s running to the ball really well and he packs a punch when he arrives. Beasley will remain the starter as Juwan Mitchell has been banged up and is simply not a factor. Beasley will be challenged next week in defending the middle of the field in the pass game, but he seems like he’s like many on this team in that he’s improving weekly.
Then who had Ja’Quain Blakely in the pool for leading tackler on the defensive line 6 games into the season. Blakely had 6 tackles and a TFL Saturday. For the season he has 17 tackles and 3 TFL’s.
For both Beasley and Blakely, the coaching change has been good. Blakely under Rodney Garner is improving weekly and this staff has put Beasley at linebacker and left him there after he had played running back, safety and linebacker previously.
7. Special teams mistakes must be cleaned up — Velus Jones was really good in punt return. I thought he could have returned a couple of kickoffs in the second half that he fair caught. Maybe that was by design, I don’t know. I just like the ball in his hands with some green grass in front of him.
Paxton Brooks had a shanked punt. Tennessee’s kickoff coverage wasn’t very good. Ekeler’s group gave up a 39 yard return and South Carolina had another healthy return called back on a penalty.
Then allowing the fake punt is inexcusable. Ball is at mid-field and that was an obvious fake situation. You can’t just ignore the gunner and turn him loose. Just not good. Admittedly upon rewatch because of injuries they had some guys playing special teams who had played little this year, but special teams has to be better.
The kicking game has eliminate the big plays against them.
8. Getting off the field — One of the challenges to the defense this week was to get off the field in 3rd and long after giving up 4 third and long (9 yards +) in the first quarter last week at Missouri. South Carolina was 1 for 9 on third down conversions where it was 3rd and 9+.
The one that the Gamecocks did convert was a gift from Tim Banks. The Vols DC who has done a great job this season called for an all out blitz on 3rd and 18 in the third quarter. The blitz left the secondary in man to man coverage and with their back to the line of scrimmage Luke Doty broke contain and scrambled for 23 yards and a first down.
Really surprising they didn’t play zone and keep the ball in front of them.
But overall, the defense was much much better in third and long situations on Saturday and just importantly they got themselves into those situations with good production on first and second down.
9. First quarter champs — Josh Heupel has been talking for weeks about his teams need to be better the 48 hours leading up to kickoff. The reality is that this team has been good in the first quarter all year. The last two weeks they have putting up Playstation numbers. Tennessee has outscored their opponents 101-13 in the first quarter this season. The last two weeks it’s been a 56-3 onslaught and Florida is the only team to scored a first quarter touchdown on Tim Banks this season.
Banks has had a great bead on his opponent to start games and offensively there’s been plenty of creativity. At Florida it was a screen pass. It’s been deep balls to Javonta Payton the last two weeks. Saturday the TD to Payton was a new wrinkle on an RPO play call. They showed an end around look to Velus Jones that they hadn’t shown before as well. But the most impressive thing to me about the offense to start the game is they the offensive staff hasn’t been stubborn.
At Missouri they immediately adjusted to the 3 man front and against South Carolina they were patient to open the game taking what the Gamecocks gave them. Tennessee’s first scoring drive was 14 plays 66 yards and took 4:29 off the clock. The longest drive of the season.
This team’s first quarter work has been impressive.
10. It is a week to week season — Sometimes coach speak is just rhetoric talk, but the talk of how it’s a week to week season and you are just trying to go 1-0 that week is one of the most accurate sayings in today’s college football.
There’s more parity in the college game these days and the reality is that it’s harder than ever in today’s world to get 18-22 year olds to play at their peak each week.
There’s no better example of that then Texas A&M. The Aggies were terrible against Mississippi State. They couldn’t hold up on the offensive line and their defense couldn’t get to State’s quarterback. Then they help up on offense with two freshmen on the offensive line and they knocked quarterback Bryce Young around all night.
You look at the games that are head scratcher around the country and you realize it truly is about surviving week to week. The exception to that might be Georgia but it’s hard ever week which is why you should appreciate every win.
Because you never know which is what makes college football great and maddening depending on who your team is.
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