Tennessee Vols Smokey Points: Top Five Vols Who Performed Against the Oklahoma Sooners

Sep 12, 2015; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers fans react during the second quarter at Neyland Stadium during the game against the Oklahoma Sooners. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

In a 31-24 overtime loss to the Sooners, here are the top five Tennessee Volunteers performers who earned Helmet Sticker, what we call Smokey Points.

Even in defeat, there were quite a few Tennessee Vols football players who had a great game. There are plenty of players and coaches who need to be called to the carpet for their failures as well.

But some individuals gave us things to be encouraged about.

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The Volunteers proved as a whole, unfortunately, that they do not yet have the mental toughness to pull out close games like the ones against the Oklahoma Sooners, but they keep getting closer.

Or they keep falling further and further behind depending on how you look at it.

Nonetheless, there were plenty of football players who fought their guts off to the very end and did everything they possibly could to help Tennessee win this game.

And many of them were the only reasons the Vols were able to compete in this contest to start with.

They at least helped to show improvement for the Vols, but this remains a very difficult one to swallow.

Even though it is not a conference game, you do not want to lose one of these big non-conference games.

And hey, maybe we can blame Checker Neyland as a jinx or something Clay Travis tweeted.

We can also hang our hats on the possibility that Oklahoma has a great year. Remember, Kirk Herbstreit has the Sooners in his College Football Playoff.

But what we can’t do is sit there and target everybody on the football team for losing this game when there are some guys who performed well.

Let’s take a look at the Top Five Vol performers who earned Smokey Points this week in their 31-24 heartbreaking double-overtime loss to the Oklahoma Sooners.

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