Tennessee football blame pie: Who’s at fault for Vols’ loss to Kentucky?

Tennessee football fell to the Kentucky Wildcats 29-26 on Saturday in Lexington. Here is a look at who is responsible for the Volunteers’ loss.

It was another bad loss for Tennessee football. The Vols are now 3-5 and 0-5 in the SEC, and they’re on a four-game losing streak. At this point, it’s almost impossible to see how Butch Jones even survives the weekend.

After all, you can’t have a two-game losing streak in the Kentucky/Vanderbilt games. But that’s what he has right now after losing to the Commodores last November.

There were plenty of positives from the Vols’ loss to Kentucky, including the emergence of Jarrett Guarantano. But somebody has to take blame for what happened. And there’s plenty of that to go around too.

So let’s get to that. This is a look at our chart over who’s to blame in Tennessee football’s loss to Kentucky.

Tennessee football offensive tackles: 50 percent

Drew Richmond and Brett Kendrick should have taken a long, hot shower after this one. Kentucky abused them around the edges all night, and they had one of their worst performances ever. Thanks to their failures, the Vols allowed seven sacks on the night. Kendrick also was responsible for a crucial penalty that cost the Vols a touchdown on one drive. It was a total disaster from the start.

Tennessee football defensive ends: 15 percent

While the offensive tackles were horrendous, the defensive ends weren’t much better. Kentucky is one of the worst teams in college football at preventing sacks. The Vols, meanwhile, got Darrell Taylor back to complement Jonathan Kongbo and Kyle Phillips. Yet, altogether, they had zero sacks on the night. Heck, they never even hurried Stephen Johnson and let Benny Snell Jr. torch them on multiple drives. It was embarrassing.

Coleman Thomas: 10 percent

Coleman Thomas had a snap infraction early when the Vols were threatening. That cost them a touchdown. Then he proceeded to help the team get beat all night en route to allowing seven sacks. Thomas did do a decent job run blocking, though, and that alleviated some of his failures. It’s why we only give him 10 percent.

Josh Smith: 10 percent

Josh Smith didn’t catch one pass in the game. But he did have a holding penalty that wiped out what would have been a Ty Chandler touchdown. That alone was enough to warrant him 10 percent. If he was in there more, he probably would have racked up a larger percentage.

Butch Jones: 10 percent

Just because. Okay, but seriously. The play-calling wasn’t terrible in this game, but Butch Jones has to shoulder some blame for all the mental mistakes his team made. Those things don’t just happen. As a result, he’s got to still be on here.

Brent Cimaglia: 5 percent

Brent Cimaglia does get credit for making four field goals. And we don’t hold one miss against him. However, he also missed a 44-yarder dead center. That should have been automatic for a guy on scholarship to kick a ball. And because he failed there, we had to drop five percent on him.