Josh Heupel addresses Tennessee's offensive struggles in red zone

Josh Heupel isn’t certain why Tennessee’s offense is sputtering in the red zone. However, he’s certain he wants it fixed. On Thursday, the UT head coach weighed in on the Volunteers’ struggles converting near the end zone.

“It’s been a little bit of everything,” Heupel said. “It can be efficiency and fundamentals and technique. It’s been penalties at times, too. At the end of the day, we got to go put the ball in the end zone.”

Tennessee is only converting on 84.8% of its red-zone attempts this season. While the number seems substantial, it’s not. The Volunteers are in the bottom 50% of the country in red-zone efficiency. This nasty habit reared its ugly head in Tennessee’ 34-20 loss to Alabama.

Down by 14 points with two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Tennessee’s red-zone offense was a disaster. After being forced to fourth and five, Tennessee shot itself in the foot, committing a false start and pushing itself back to fourth and 10.

Forced to launch a difficult pass into coverage, Joe Milton‘s throw to Squirrel White was incomplete. Ball game. Milton’s misguided throw wasn’t Tennessee’s only failure to convert in tight quarters. The Volunteers also failed to pick up a yard on two pivotal fourth-down conversions.

While the fourth downs didn’t occur in the red zone, they echoed a similar theme. When Tennessee runs into a wall, it struggles to find a way through. After the game, Heupel addressed the reoccurring theme.

“I just felt like the scheme, based on the personnel that they had out there, that we had a good play,” Heupel said. “Obviously, didn’t pick that one up either. It’s a read off the edge, felt like it was condensed, didn’t get it going around the edge.

“[We] had been punting it, fourth and less than one. Giving up a score on the previous one. Felt like we had an opportunity to pick it up. Obviously, we didn’t. Gave them a short field and they took advantage of it.”

Tennessee runs into issues on the road

Tennessee’s only other loss this season was also on the road. The Volunteers fell 29-16 to Florida in Week 3. Following UT’s loss to Alabama, Heupel evaluated his team’s issues with performing away from home.

“I don’t know. The communication is the only thing that’s, in my opinion, more difficult,” Heupel said. “As long as you’re settled into your job and doing that when you’re out between the white lines. Today, that’s a good football team, talking about Alabama, and we didn’t reset, refocus, and make any plays in the second half. That’s the end result.”