You’d expect the Vols’ national stat rankings to take a hit after playing Georgia, Auburn, and a historically good Alabama team all in a row, and you do see some of that. But Tennessee seems to have survived that stretch without too much dropoff, and when you compare things to this time last year, you might just be encouraged.
Offense
The Tennessee offense is doing some things really well and some things not well at all, but most the offense is stuck in that middle not-great-not-terrible territory. Overall, though, it is better than this time last year, when it was all just plain terrible.
Defense
I think maybe the most important takeaway here is that Rushing Defense has improved fairly significantly. Great defenses tend to start there and build off it.
Special Teams
Turnovers and Penalties
Is 1st downs offense the number of 1st downs or the yardage we generate on 1st downs? Would be interesting to see, if it isn’t the latter, what that is versus the average (considering the amount of TFLs/short gains on 1st downs this year).
Butch Jones Cigar Incident 1) Butch deserved to smoke a cigar. He was fully responsible for the quality of players on the other side of the field from Bama. He deserves full credit for the Bama victory. 2) As Sigmund Freud says, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And, sometimes the guy smoking the cigar is just a cigar as well. 3) The whole cigar thing was really a misunderstanding. Butch sold somebody a used car during halftime and thought everybody was celebrating. 4) Gotta give Butch credit. He may well be the, um, well, er, oldest intern in… Read more »