Tennessee Football: Vols Can't Afford their Usual Slow Start at Georgia

Tennessee football hopes to take control of the SEC East by beating the Bulldogs in Athens Saturday. But the Volunteers can’t have their usual slow starts.

In the minds of most Tennessee football fans and analysts at this point, the Vols have turned the corner. They went from blowing three two-touchdown leads last year to winning three of their first four games this year after trailing by two scores or more.

They turned the corner a year ago, in fact, by coming back from a 24-3 deficit to beat the Georgia Bulldogs at Neyland Stadium in 2015. Since then, they are 11-1 and have won 10 straight.

And this week, they travel to Athens for a rematch against the same team that helped them turn the corner.

On paper, this should be an easy win. Tennessee is loaded with talent, the Dawgs have a new head coach, and they’re coming off of a major blowout loss to the Ole Miss Rebels.

But this might be the toughest game yet for the Vols simply because of the way they play.

Butch Jones’s team has garnered acclaim for rebounding after slow starts this year. There was concern against the Appalachian State Mountaineer after falling behind 13-3 to win in overtime.

But then they fell behind by two touchdowns before blowing out the Virginia Tech Hokies and then by three touchdowns before dominating the Florida Gators. So what’s the concern?

They have yet to do that on the road.

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In all of the Vols’ comebacks after being down two scores dating back to last year’s Georgia game, they did it in front of a majority Tennessee football fan base. Even in the Battle at Bristol, Vols fans outnumbered Hokies fans.

On Saturday, however, they’ll be facing a Bulldogs team that is talented enough to beat them. And it will be in Georgia’s house.

If Tennessee has a slow start, it will do two things. The first thing it will do is restore Georgia’s confidence after the thrashing they received last week against the Ole Miss Rebels.

But the next thing it will do is keep the crowd in it. The Vols may not be worried about slow starts right now, but it’s much harder for the offense to come back when the crowd is screaming in your ear.

Jones and Mike DeBord want to do everything they can to avoid that.

Lots of this falls on Bob Shoop as well. As good as he has been defensively, he has struggled at the start of games. His strength is adjusting.

But adjusting isn’t the only thing he can do this game. He’s got to set the tone early. He’s got two backup linebackers and is going against a great rushing attack.

On top of that, the Dawgs have a solid deep ball with Jacob Eason throwing to Isaiah McKenzie. And Tennessee struggled against the deep ball early last week.

All of this means that former Tennessee football offensive coordinator Jim Chaney has the perfect recipe in running to set up big passing plays this game.

If he does that, the crowd will go wild early and stay loud. And that’ll be hard for the Vols to recover.

Their defense won’t have the loud fan base behind them this game. There will be no third down gimmicks to get hype. And the offense will have to keep its tempo with the crowd remaining loud.

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Tennessee has shown it can respond to adversity without the crowd against it. But they could put themselves in the opposite situation Saturday. Responding on the road in the SEC is much more difficult.

Kirby Smart knows this. As a result, he will likely pull all the stops out to get the Vols. For once, they have to respond to the threats early.

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Tennessee Football: Vols Can’t Afford their Usual Slow Start at Georgia Bulldogs

By Caleb Calhoun | Sep 29, 2016

Tennessee football hopes to take control of the SEC East by beating the Bulldogs in Athens Saturday. But the Volunteers can’t have their usual slow starts.