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Tennessee Vols Quarterback Joshua Dobbs Potentially Being Overrated for 2015 Season

By Caleb Calhoun

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Tennessee Vols Quarterback Joshua Dobbs is receiving lots of preseason hype, but is it warranted? Or is he being vastly overrated?

On the heels of SEC Media Days, much of the talk centered around Joshua Dobbs as he enters his junior year as quarterback of the Tennessee Volunteers.

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Dobbs was selected as one of the players to represent the Vols at Media Days, he was named as a Preseason All-SEC Quarterback, he is on the Maxwell Award Preseason Watch List, and multiple articles were released last week naming him the potential new face of the SEC.

All of this comes after a strong finish to last season for the Aerospace Engineer, who will enter the season as the starter for the first time in his college career this year and could be the best mix of smarts and athleticism ever seen on the football field.

But is it warranted?

Dobbs right now is resting on the laurels of bringing Tennessee back to make a game against Alabama, leading a fourth-quarter two-touchdown comeback with less than four minutes left on the road against South Carolina, racking up stats against Kentucky, and then winning the Taxslayer Bowl MVP against Iowa.

However, these accomplishments should not be enough to warrant him so much preseason hype. Let’s analyze his accomplishments game by game.

Dobbs came in and led a comeback against Alabama after the Vols were already down 27-0. They lost 34-20, but you don’t think Alabama had already called off the dogs to a degree once Dobbs already came into the game?

Of course they did.

The next week against South Carolina, his fourth quarter finish was amazing, but it was against a South Carolina team that had struggled with the transition to a 3-4 defense all year and was terrible when it went into prevent mode. Yes, Dobbs showed his clutch gene with his comeback, but the 300 yards passing, 166 yards rushing, and five total touchdowns was, quite frankly, not that impressive against a team that bad.

Kentucky was Kentucky, and while he put up great stats at home against them, you can’t read too much into that.

Then came Missouri, and that’s a game we can analyze. The Tigers would inevitably give the Vols offensive line trouble, and they did. Dobbs was exposed that game showing an inability to really make significant plays when he was under constant pressure.

The last regular season game of the year, Dobbs was awful against a terrible Vanderbilt squad where he threw for no touchdowns and two interceptions, but we can excuse him for that since every Tennessee quarterback for some random reason struggles with Vanderbilt.

Then came Dobbs’s impressive TaxSlayer Bowl Performance, and while he earned MVP, it was against an Iowa Hawkeyes team that should fire Kirk Ferentz as they had absolutely no team speed, perpetuating the Big Ten stereotype worse than anybody. Dobbs was efficient in the game but did not have to do much because he was always given the short field.

All of this is to say that while Dobbs has shown flashes, he is way too far from putting it all together, which makes it baffling that he would be on so many awards watch lists.

Can he do it against a legitimate team in a legitimate moment first? That has not yet happened. And for two other interesting notes, let’s not forget how bad he was when he came in for Justin Worley in the second half of the 2013 season. Also, amidst all the excitement last year, Dobbs still only had nine passing touchdowns to six interceptions, which is not a good ratio.

His efficiency is still a question mark. From the perspective of the SEC, Dobbs’s preseason hype is only warranted because the quarterback situation in the conference is terrible.

But from a national perspective, Dobbs’s body of work is not nearly enough to receive the offseason praise he has gotten so far. I’ll reserve full judgment until at least Oklahoma.

Next: Vols 2015 Season Preview by Position

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