Tennessee football vs. Florida: Vols and Gators keys to the game

5. Can the Vols defense generate pressure?

While Tennessee football’s pass protection has struggled and is going up against an elite pass rush, their defensive front seven has been absolutely awful at generating pressure through three games. The fact of the matter is the front seven has been a major disappointment outside of Darrin Kirkland Jr.

Now, the other linebackers finally came on last Saturday against the UTEP Miners. But you have to take that with a grain of salt given the fact that their opponent was indeed UTEP. Meanwhile, the defensive line is still struggling to get any kind of push, which is where the pressure starts.

Alexis Johnson and Emmit Gooden made impacts in back to back weeks. But Shy Tuttle’s impact has been minimal, and Kyle Phillips hasn’t really shown much either. How are the Vols going to make it through an SEC season with these issues?

Feleipe Franks is still learning Dan Mullen’s spread, but part of his focus is getting rid of the ball quickly. Still, the Kentucky Wildcats showed how awful he is under pressure. He threw one pick that should have been five with the way Mark Stoops and his guys rushed him. Franks can’t throw well with somebody in his face.

This is where the Vols came up short in their opener against the West Virginia Mountaineers. They have to hope that they have made improvements since then, because of Franks’s jersey is clean, then the this will be a long game. Mullen will be able to run his spread easily, even in this first year, because of that.