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Five Takeaways from Tennessee Vols’ Victory Over North Texas

By Caleb Calhoun

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The Tennessee Volunteers football team shut out the Mean Green 24-0 Saturday at Neyland Stadium in an ugly game. Here are five takeaways from the win.

Next: Vols Shut Out North Texas 24-0 in Ugly Affair

Butch Jones stressed all week the importance of remaining focused for a noon game against a very bad team. And he tried his best to instill those values in his team.

It did not work too well.

The fans were clearly not into this football game as the Vols won their homecoming game 24-0, and the emotions of the Vols were clearly lethargic.

Still, a win is a win. But Tennessee will have to play a lot better if it wants to beat the Missouri Tigers on the road next week, especially considering that the Tigers will be looking to send Gary Pinkel off right.

Here are five takeaways from Saturday’s game on the Vols.

1. Joshua Dobbs Clearly Looks Injured

This started to show in the second half last week against the South Carolina Gamecocks. Dobbs had a lot of plays where he had an open field to be himself and run, but he decided to stay back and force in a throw.

That is what caused so many problems in the passing game. If Dobbs is one-dimensional like that, teams can simply drop back in zone. At the same time, it’s what allowed Alvin Kamara to get 127 yards.

2. The Neyland Stadium Field is an Issue

It’s kind of a weird thing to bring up, but there was a lot of slipping going on on the field Saturday. Perhaps this new turf is not the greatest thing in the world for the players. It’s something officials might want to look at.

Don’t you miss the nearly 20 years the Vols played on natural grass? That was a heck of a lot more fun to watch.

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3. The Front Seven of Tennessee is Elite

At least in stopping the pass, this remains the case. It’s hard to gauge too much from playing the North Texas Mean Green, and the Vols are still inconsistent in stopping the run, which is what allowed their opponents to milk some clock.

But they still managed to keep the passing game completely irrelevant in this game. And with Darrin Kirkland settling in at middle linebacker, this unit is only getting better.

4. Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara are a True Duo

Against the North Texas Mean Green, once again, we are not going to read too much in the great job both running backs did on the ground. But at the same time, with Joshua Dobbs having a bad day, both players had to step up.

And it was Hurd’s 72 yards along with Kamara’s 127 yards as they combined for three touchdowns to give the Vols the 24-0 win. Hurd is the workhorse, but Kamara is continuing to settle into his role as a big-play back. Jones and Mike DeBord need to use him more.

5. Tennessee is Losing Focus With Its Easy Schedule

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It was clear at the beginning of the year that the front end of Tennessee’s football schedule would be loaded with hard teams en route to the No. 1 strength of schedule through the first seven games. But it was also clear that the back end would be filled with cupcakes.

Those cupcakes became sweeter when we realized that South Carolina and Missouri were worse than we even thought with Kentucky being as bad as we thought. As a result, the Vols are starting to develop some unacceptable bad habits, such as not focusing in the passing game, the offensive line missing blocks, the secondary missing assignments, and Joshua Dobbs being reckless with the ball.

Tennessee has got to get those things corrected. The Missouri Tigers are still good enough to beat anybody on a bad day, and they feed off of mistakes. Butch Jones knows this and has a week to get things corrected.

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