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Three Things We Learned About the Tennessee Vols in their Win Over Western Carolina

By Caleb Calhoun

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The Tennessee Volunteers football team destroyed the Western Carolina Catamounts 55-10 Saturday night. Here are three things we learned about the Vols.

It was a blowout much bigger than even seen on the scoreboard.

The Vols had control against WCU all night in their 55-10 victory after taking a 41-3 lead into halftime.

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You never want to read too much into a win over an FCS opponent, but there are some things you can pull from a game like this, particularly things you team needs to work on.

The Vols, despite such a complete win, still have major issues they have to work out, and some of them were exposed Saturday night.

But at the same time, based on a body of work over three weeks, there are also a few things that we can take from this game that are major pluses for the Vols.

Here are the three things we learned about the Tennessee football team after their 55-10 win over the Catamounts.

1. Joshua Dobbs’s accuracy remains an issue.

This is the big one. Joshua Dobbs is the perfect quarterback to make up the perfect rushing backfield for the Vols, and his throwing ability on top of that along with his clutch gene only adds to that. He deserves all of the hype he is getting.

But despite going 15 of 21 for two touchdowns and 144 yards before being pulled, there are still major issues with his accuracy. Dobbs missed an easy touchdown pass on a rollout in the first half when the Vols were up 7-0, forcing them to settle for a field goal. Then he overthrew a couple of other passes.

Overall, he is fine as the quarterback, but his off and on accuracy has got to be corrected with an elite Florida defense up next.

2. The Defense is among college football’s best when fully healthy.

The first game against the Bowling Green Falcons, the secondary raised concerns after giving up so many points to quarterback Matt Johnson. But they had no true strong safety at the time. Then, with Todd Kelly Jr. back, the defense looked great against Oklahoma until the fourth quarter, when they were consistently stuck on the field and Curt Maggitt went out with an injury.

Maggitt was still out on Saturday, but LaDarrell McNeil also returned at strong safety to give the Vols a complete secondary with Cameron Sutton still shutting down one side of the field. The result was an unbreakable defense outside of a big play in the first half and a late touchdown in garbage time.

The Vols looked great for three and a half quarters against Oklahoma and a full game Saturday, so they are clearly the real deal.

3. Tennessee should win the field position battle every game.

With the return squad and Trevor Daniel as the punter, the Vols have one of the most elite special teams units in terms of field position. We can’t make the commitment to give the special teams a perfect score simply due to the inconsistency of Aaron Medley at kicker. But everything else is fine.

Trevor Daniel just might be the best punter in the country. His four punts did not have a high average, only 42.5 yards per punt, but that average was skewed because he had the short field twice. And he nailed all four inside the 20-yard line, so Daniel was perfect Saturday.

At the same time, the return game was amazing. Alvin Kamara returned a punt for a touchdown and should have returned two, and Evan Berry, with his brother in the house, continued his great return game with an amazing kick return for a touchdown. Then Micah Abernathy had a 27-yard kick return. So the return game is awesome, and that along with great punting means the Vols will be awesome in the field position game all year.

Next: Tennessee Beats Western Carolina 55-10

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