Tennessee is in meltdown mode after we beat them

[ShepCock]

SUBTITLE: "Quick, somebody call the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaambulance!" 

 

Part 1

5 things we learned from Vols' loss to South Carolina
 
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Five things we learned from No. 18 Tennessee’s 24-21 loss to South Carolina on Saturday night at Williams-Brice Stadium. Tennessee’s third straight conference loss dropped the Vols to 5-3 overall and 2-3 in the SEC.
 
1. Same problems keep hurting Vols
 
Tennessee has talked all season about fixing certain issues, but they continue to plague the Vols. Despite coming off an open week, Tennessee lacked intensity and energy at the start and fell behind early again. Tennessee has been outscored 133-72 in the first half this season. Self-inflicted wounds once again hurt the Vols. Tennessee committed three turnovers and had nine penalties for 87 yards. A healthier offensive line didn’t lead to an improved performance. Dobbs and the running backs were continually pressured and the Vols gave up two sacks and averaged 3.7 yards per rush.
 
2. Dobbs struggled to spark the offense
 
Tennessee senior quarterback Joshua Dobbs hasn’t been performing to his own standards. In the last two games, he’s thrown for 253 yards and rushed for minus-4 yards. It was somewhat understandable against top-ranked Alabama’s defense with injuries along Tennessee’s offensive line. But South Carolina made Dobbs appear just as out of sorts. He committed three turnovers with two interceptions and a fumble. Dobbs completed 12 of 26 passes for 161 yards and a touchdown and rushed 12 times for 27 yards. Dobbs was rattled by South Carolina's pressure and bounced passes to receivers. It’s hard to know how much of the skittishness is a result of Tennessee’s subpar offensive line play this season. Dobbs has 11 interceptions and three fumbles lost through eight games. He had five interceptions total last season.
 
3. Vols will need some breaks to win the SEC East
 
Tennessee’s SEC East Division title hopes were dampened in the loss. The Vols can still emerge as champions, but will need more help. Florida (6-1, 4-1) remained in first place with a win over Georgia on Saturday and Kentucky (5-3, 4-2) stayed in second with a win over Missouri. Florida plays at Arkansas, hosts South Carolina and is at LSU to finish conference play. After a homecoming game against Tennessee Tech, the Vols host Kentucky and Missouri and travel to Vanderbilt. Kentucky hosts Georgia and plays at Tennessee. The Vols had the easiest road to the title on paper, but the loss to South Carolina largely negated that advantage. Florida and Kentucky have won three straight games and Tennessee has lost three straight.
 
4. Record not a sure thing anymore for Hurd
 
It was expected junior running back Jalen Hurd would break the UT all-time rushing record by the end of the season. But that looks more and more in doubt. Hurd rushed for 16 yards on eight carries in the first half against South Carolina and did not play in the second half. He is in sixth place in the UT record book with 2,634 yards. Travis Henry holds the record with 3,078 yards. Hurd needs 445 more yards to break the record this season. Hurd is averaging 3.7 yards per carry and 64.4 per game. He will need to be more productive down the stretch to break the record if he’s able to play in full games. He’s already missed one game with an undisclosed injury. If Hurd stays on his average through the four remaining regular-season games and an expected bowl game, he would finish the season with 2,956 career yards. That would rank second all-time behind recently-retired Arian Foster (2,964).
 
5. Bright spots amid the dark night
 
Although there wasn’t much to celebrate in the aftermath, a few Vols hit career milestones and performed well. Junior defensive end Derek Barnett finished with three sacks and three tackles for loss. Barnett now ranks second all-time in UT history for career sacks with 29. Reggie White holds the record with 32 sacks from 1980-83. Running back John Kelly had a strong showing with Alvin Kamara sidelined by an injury. Kelly carried 14 times for 94 yards. Combined with his 89-yard performance against Texas A&M, Kelly has made a good case for more touches going forward. Evan Berry came close to going the distance many times this season and finally broke through against South Carolina, taking a kickoff return 100 yards for a touchdown that gave Tennessee some life in the third quarter. It was Berry’s fourth career kickoff return for a touchdown, tying him with Willie Gault (1979-82) for the most in UT history.
 

 

[ShepCock]

Part 2

Vols report card: Poor grades for poor effort

 
QUARTERBACK - D
 
Joshua Dobbs had a successful history against South Carolina, but he didn’t play well on Saturday night. The senior seemed rattled by South Carolina’s pressure, bouncing passes and taking hard hits on designed runs. He committed three turnovers and finished with only 161 yards passing and 27 yards rushing.
 
RUNNING BACKS – C
 
Alvin Kamara was out of the lineup with an injured knee. John Kelly ran well in his place with 94 yards on 14 carries. Jalen Hurd finished with eight carries for 16 yards and didn’t play in the second half. Freshman Carlin Fils-Aime knocked the ball out of Dobbs’ hands for a fumble and South Carolina recovered.
 
WIDE RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS – C
 
The passing offense produced 161 yards. Josh Malone had four catches for 42 yards and Jauan Jennings had three catches for 54 yards. The Vols had a few drops. Tight end Ethan Wolf had a 25-yard reception for his lone catch and Jason Croom had two catches for 22 yards.
 
OFFENSIVE LINE – D-
 
The Vols had all their players available from injury, but the play didn’t improve. The Vols allowed six sacks and didn’t give Dobbs much time to set his feet and throw. Dylan Wiesman uncorked a high snap for a 15-yard loss. Tennessee rushed for 136 yards.
 
DEFENSIVE LINE – C-
 
Defensive end Derek Barnett performed well and had three sacks to move into second all-time on the UT career list. He added three tackles for loss. Corey Vereen had a sack. The Vols allowed another team to find success with the run from their backs and quarterback. Shy Tuttle was injured during the game.
 
LINEBACKERS – D
 
Darrin Kirkland Jr. returned to the lineup after a five-game absence. The sophomore was a little rusty after the layoff, but led the Vols with eight tackles. He started alongside Colton Jumper, who made three tackles. Stopping the run was an issue again.
 
SECONDARY – C-
 
The Vols were missing Malik Foreman and Micah Abernathy with injuries. Freshman Baylen Buchanan got the start and was called for two pass interference penalties in the first quarter. The Vols had a few solid tackles on third down and contributed with sacks, but also had a few breakdowns
 
SPECIAL TEAMS – B+
 
Evan Berry ran a kickoff back 100 yards for a touchdown to give the Vols life in the third quarter. Punter Trevor Daniel continued his strong season. Daniel averaged 49.0 yards per punt, including a long of 70. Aaron Medley missed a 58-yard field goal attempt at the buzzer to tie.
 
COACHING – D-
 
Tennessee endured another slow start and was plagued by turnovers and penalties for a sloppy performance against a young South Carolina team. The Vols lacked energy after the bye week. They struggled sporadically against the run on defense and couldn’t get any momentum generated on offense. The same problems continue to burden the Vols through eight weeks.

 

[ShepCock]

Part 3

Misery Index Week 9: Knocked out in Knoxville
 

 
Brick by brick, this is the house Butch Jones built, a place where clichés are disguised as introspection and expectations torture him like an anvil constantly pointed at his neck.
 
You have to have thick skin to coach at a place like Tennessee, whose history takes a back seat only to Alabama in the Southeastern Conference record books. And you have to deliver in the wake of constant scrutiny and withering criticism, or else all those millions of dollars won’t do too much to help your quality of life.
 
The thing with Jones from the beginning has been whether he could truly stand tall in that kind of environment or whether it would eat him up the way it does so many coaches whose careers were spent in the dimmer lights of places such as Mount Pleasant, Mich., and Cincinnati.
 
In the SEC, you can’t just recruit, you can’t just motivate and you can’t just be an X and O geek. You’ve got to do it all, or else you have no shot.
 
What’s happening at Tennessee this season isn’t merely exposing the areas where Jones has come up short over this 3⅔ seasons. Those things were obvious long before now. But what it’s done is removed the buffer that had always existed for fans, because regardless of the disappointments in his first three seasons, this was the year it would really begin to count.
 
You could explain away the lack of good wins in 2014 or the blown leads in 2015 because the pieces that had been assembled in Knoxville through Jones’ early recruiting tear were always meant to come together in 2016.
 
Tennessee fans have taken the ride with him from blaming Derek Dooley for the shape the program was in to finding hope in the young players Jones had recruited to pumping up Atlanta-or-bust expectations for this season in what looked like an otherwise weak year for the SEC East.
 
And indeed, the SEC East is as weak or weaker than imagined. But Tennessee is partly to blame for that after losing to South Carolina 24-21 and falling to 5-3. Even if the Vols get to Atlanta — and it’s a long shot that will require big-time help from Florida — Jones has all but assured his fan base will deem this season a failure.
 
That’s the danger Jones put himself in when he staked everything on this season when players like Joshua Dobbs, Jalen Hurd, Alvin Kamara, Josh Malone, Todd Kelly Jr., Derek Barnett and more would finally be experienced enough to compete with the best the SEC had to offer. And it hasn’t helped that Jones, who wakes up tightly wound and bristles at the slightest hint of criticism about his program, spent the past three years browbeating the media and fans for having expectations that Tennessee fans consider a birthright.
 
Now we’re here and nobody in Knoxville seems happy, even though Tennessee football is in a way better place than it was five years ago and Jones is making millions more than he could have dreamed.
 
But that’s college football, where a fan base that could experience its best season in a decade still feels like a failure.

 

[ShepCock]

Part 4

Rough time to be a Volunteer
 
Is Tennessee looking at another Rocky Flop?
 
Only three weeks ago, the Volunteers were 5-0 and ranked No. 9 in the country. After ending an 11-game losing streak against Florida and beating Georgia on an improbable Hail Mary touchdown pass on the final play, the Volunteers only had to keep their heads above water to win the woeful SEC East.
 
Even after losing consecutive games against Texas A&M and Alabama earlier this month, the Volunteers were still in position for a memorable season.
 
But after losing 24-21 at South Carolina on Saturday night, Tennessee now needs to win out and hope the Gators lose two of their final three conference games to return to the SEC championship game for the first time since 2007.
 
As a result of their surprising loss to the Gamecocks, the Volunteers were one of three teams eliminated from contention for the College Football Playoff by The Eliminator this week. Through nine weeks, 109 of the 128 FBS teams have been eliminated, leaving 19 in contention for the four spots in the playoff.

 

[ShepCock]

Part 5

Jalen Hurd says he plans to transfer from Tennessee
 
Tennessee running back Jalen Hurd has told teammates and staff members that he plans to transfer, but sources told ESPN that it's a fluid situation and nothing is final.
 
Hurd's plans to transfer were first reported Monday by radio station WNML in Knoxville, Tennessee. The radio station also reported that the 6-foot-4 Hurd wants to switch positions and will attempt to play either wide receiver or tight end at his new school.
 
Volunteers coach Butch Jones will hold his weekly news conference at noon ET on Monday.
 
Hurd has had an injury-plagued season and didn't play in the second half of Saturday's 24-21 loss to South Carolina.
 
Sources close to Hurd have been saying for a year or more that he preferred to play in an I-formation offense.

 

[Garnet]

Long and good write ShepCock, let's hope you're right and we will beat the suckers

 

[Giggly]

Let's beat em!