Tennessee has to pick up the pieces: The Weekly 3-2-1

Tennessee took it on the chin Saturday night at Arkansas, but the Vols have to regroup quickly with back-to-back games against Florida and Alabama on deck. How do the Vols move forward? We look back, and ahead, in this week’s 3-2-1.

THREE OBSERVATIONS

1 — Offensive issues are real — From a fan’s perspective there was very little to like about Saturday’s performance in Fayetteville.

Tennessee’s offensive performance at Arkansas sits alone at the top of the list of disappointments from the weekend.

The numbers paint a bleak (and accurate) picture of how brutally ineffective the Vols were on offense; shutout in a half for the first time in Josh Heupel’s career as a head coach, 76 yards of offense in the first half, 14 points for the game, scoreless in all but one quarter, lost an 11-point lead in the second half because they couldn’t move the chains and stay on the field.

Nico Iamaleava struggled. How much of those struggles are on him and how much were the result of some very spotty pass protection is hard to know. Iamaleava finished 16-of-28 for 156 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions. He was just 4-of-12 passing in the fourth quarter.

It didn’t appear that Tennessee had a lot of receivers just running open that Iamaleava didn’t see, but there were some opportunities for plays to be made down the field. But it wasn’t a great night for the wideouts either, and both Squirrel White and Bru McCoy were knocked out of the game with injuries.
Iamaleava is obviously talented, but the fact of the matter is that he has to play better.

What makes the offensive struggles so worrisome is what we saw at Oklahoma.

Now that you’ve seen those struggles in two straight games you can’t chalk it up to the Sooner’s defense or to Josh Huepel calling a conservative game because his own defense had matters well in hand.

You also can’t blame offensive line injuries. Tennessee was at full strength up front at Arkansas. PFF grades aren’t infallible, but the Vols starting tackles; John Campbel (47.4) and Lance Heard (42.2) were the lowest graded players on offense. That seemed to match with what we saw on Saturday night.

After two SEC games in which Tennessee has had huge problems moving the ball it’s pretty clear that the early season competition artificially inflated the Vols’ offensive numbers.

The passing game simply isn’t going to have a chance to click if Tennessee can’t protect Iamaleava. Arkansas got home for four sacks and had him feeling heat often. And that’s an Arkansas defense that isn’t exactly great at getting to the quarterback, they came into the weekend with just 10 sacks in five games. That’s a red flag.

This is definitely not where it felt like this Tennessee team was going to be two weeks ago.

2 — Not a stellar night for the defense either — When you hold an opponent to 19 points and lose, fingers are understandably going to be pointed at the offense. And that’s fair after Saturday’s performance.

The numbers don’t look awful on the surface. I mean Arkansas was held under 20 points and 434 yards of offense.

But Tennessee gave up big plays all night to an Arkansas team that has not been explosive on offense and let a back-up quarterback come in and beat them in the fourth quarter.

Arkansas generated 10 ‘chunk’ plays in the passing game (15+ yards). The hogs also had a pair of runs for 20+ yards, including a 24 yard burst from Braylon Russell on the game winning drive.

Taylen Green, who was completing just 54% of his passes on the year and had thrown five interceptions to four touchdowns lit Tennessee up until he left with an injury early in the fourth quarter.

Green was 19-for-27 (79%) for 266 yards before exiting with an injury. Green also felt pressure from Tennessee but did a nice job of handling it.

Tennessee’s defense is most definitely not the reason the Vols lost, you can’t say that when you hold an opponent under 20.

But Tennessee’s offense just didn’t have the juice last night. That was obvious to everyone in the first half.

The defense was going to have to win that game, and it was a manageable task. Arkansas is a pedestrian offense to begin with, and the challenge was made a lot easier with a back-up quarterback under center.

Tennessee has a quality defense, no question about that. On Saturday they needed that defense to win a game for them. When push came to shove in the fourth quarter they missed their chance.

3 — College football is insane, and as a result Tennessee’s goals are still in place — this is certainly stating the obvious, but it’s worth repeating after a Saturday where No. 4 losing to an unranked team wasn’t even close to the biggest upset of the day.

I don’t bring up the fact that Alabama and Missouri also lost to try and soften the blow.

Tennessee’s loss was awful, no getting around that, and it was made all the worsebecause of how the Vols played. If your rooting interest like with the guys in Orange, that was a TOUGH watch on Saturday. Like blood running out of your eyeballs ugly.

Mizzou failing to stand on business in College Station isn’t any kind of a shock, but the final score was eye-opening.

Alabama, however, losing at Vanderbilt is Armageddon level stuff though.

As a result of Saturday’s carnage plus last week’s losses by Ole Miss and Georgia, every perceived heavyweight in the SEC other than Texas already has a loss.

This is pertinent because as bad as Tennessee was in Fayetteville, every goal that the Vols had in August is still on the table (other than an undefeated season).

Now, obviously, playoff or SEC title game talk is pointless with this team if the offense doesn’t find some fixes, but the point is, all that stuff is still out there.

If Tennessee goes 2-0 in the next two weeks they will hit the bye week at the end of October firmly in the college football playoff conversation.

TWO QUESTIONS

ANYTHING GOOD FROM SATURDAY?

I know we talked about the defense failing to close the deal in the fourth quarter up above, but there were still some things to like on that side of the ball for sure.

James Pearce is at the top of that list. He had his most productive outing of the season with nine tackles, a sack and 1.5 TFLs. Pearce was a factor.

I thought it was another really nice game for Keenan Pili as well. He had a team high 14 tackles and he’s an absolute monster in short yardage situations.

I thought Pili would be good. Didn’t think he’d be this good.

WHO IS GOING TO STEP UP?

According to our Austin Price it sounds like McCoy will try to push through his hand injury this week, or at least that the thinking at the moment.

White’s status is less clear, and as the Vols leading receiver with 15 catches, that would be a significant loss if he’s out for any length of time.

If that’s the case does the staff move someone inside to the slot, or do they give freshman Mike Matthews the shot that tons of fans want to see?

The move could also be to play much more two tight end sets.

Pure speculation on my part, but I would guess that if White misses real time Matthews will get his shot, but I don’t know that you’d see him play 50 or 60 snaps in a game right now.

ONE PREDICTION

Keeping this one simple. Tennessee will roll Florida, 20+ points.