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Tennessee football: Vols stock report following week 2 of 2018

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 08: Keith Coffee #14 of the East Tennessee State Buccaneers is brought down by Darrin Kirkland Jr. #34 of the Tennessee Volunteers during a game at Neyland Stadium on September 8, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennesee won the game 59-3. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 08: Keith Coffee #14 of the East Tennessee State Buccaneers is brought down by Darrin Kirkland Jr. #34 of the Tennessee Volunteers during a game at Neyland Stadium on September 8, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennesee won the game 59-3. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images
Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images /

Stock down

Offensive line

This isn’t a shock. Tennessee football’s offensive line was awful in their opener against the West Virginia Mountaineers, as they cost the Vols on their first drive. Then Brandon Kennedy went down with a season-ending injury in the week leading up to the ETSU game, and the Vols had to reshuffle things again. Jeremy Pruitt had already noted that they were highly inexperienced.

Well, the result was another bad game. The UT running backs are not high on our stock report because they didn’t have great averages despite scoring touchdowns. However, we didn’t doc their stock because it’s very clear that the offensive line is a huge part of the problem. Struggling for a second straight week reveals a trend, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting better.

Outside linebackers

The offensive line has a bit of an excuse right now because of the injury to Kennedy. But the Vols are looking awful at outside linebacker. We thought that Pruitt and Kevin Sherrer were moving Jonathan Kongbo and Darrell Taylor back there because if gave them a chance to wreak havoc. Well, for a second week in a row, they were largely quiet with the exception of a key tackle for a loss from Taylor.

These guys need to do better here. To be fair, the defensive line hasn’t given much of a push to help them, but it showed improvement in the second game. So we have that in the status of unknown right now. At outside linebacker, though, the switches haven’t been working so far.

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