Tennessee football: Seniors have let the Vols down this year

Tennessee football has been a huge disappointment in 2017. A big reason for that is too many seniors letting the Volunteers down this year.

Following the 2016 season, Tennessee football lost numerous key players to the NFL. Three of them were juniors who left early for the league. However, they also lost quite a few key seniors.

These seniors were major leaders for the Vols. There was obviously Joshua Dobbs, but then you had Cameron Sutton, Corey Vereen, Jason Croom, Dylan Wiesman and Jalen Reeves-Maybin before he got hurt.

This year, the new Tennessee football seniors have not picked up the slack. And that has been a problem for the Vols all season.

Tennessee is 3-5 and 0-5 in the SEC, but they are about three plays away from being 6-2 and 3-2 in the SEC with fans completely satisfied about where the program is going under Butch Jones. Lots of that is due to coaching itself.

But part of that truly is due to the seniors. In some cases, it’s a mix of both. We’ll start there.

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Jashon Robertson, one senior, moved over to center and played there the first half of the season. It’s safe to say he was beyond awful at that position, which is why we say he played a role in helping to let the team down. However, this one is a mix.

After all, Robertson is a true guard. And he’s been a great leader and blocker for the Vols. This was the coaches’ fault for moving him to center, but he still struggled. One of the reasons he was forced to play there is due to another senior not performing.

Coleman Thomas has made a slew of mistakes at center all year, and there’s no excuse for that. He has years of experience at the position.

But he managed to make mistakes like a snap infraction that cost the Vols against the Kentucky Wildcats Saturday.

Staying on the line, Brett Kendrick was no better against the Wildcats. He committed an atrocious penalty himself that cost the Vols a touchdown. And he missed numerous blocks that allowed a freshman, Jarrett Guarantano, to get sacked seven times.

But the seniors on the line haven’t been the only problem. There are issues elsewhere. Look at receiver.

Josh Smith is a senior slot guy, yet he only has five catches for 43 yards on the year and no touchdowns. Oh, and he also committed a penalty that waived off a Tennessee football touchdown on Saturday.

On defense, the story isn’t much better. To be fair, many of the seniors are hurt. But one guy whose failures have stood out is Justin Martin. The coaches have had to pull him multiple times this season for getting burned dating back to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets game.

And finally, even on special teams, the seniors are failing. Trevor Daniel is still great but has a bad game when needed most. And Aaron Medley has not developed at all in four years on field goals from beyond 40, forcing the coaches to go with Brent Cimaglia.

The poor play of all these seniors has as much to do with Tennessee football’s struggles as anything. Of course, you can still blame a lot of it on coaching for not developing these guys. And there are some seniors doing everything they can to help carry this team.

They include Kendal Vickers, Ethan Wolf, Emmanuel Moseley, and even Robertson on the line. Robertson was just forced into a position he’s not used to playing. But many of the other guys have not shown up this year the way you expect seniors to. And it’s what’s cost the Vols.