Tennessee football: 10 encouraging signs for Vols heading into bye week

10. There is no quit in this team.

I don’t like to give an E for effort too often. This isn’t a church league. That’s why this is the least important positive. Trying hard doesn’t mean much if you can’t stay within four possessions of the team you’re playing.

However, Tennessee football is dealing with a lot at this moment, and the Vols’ issues continue to show early. They’ve made numerous mistakes in some games and have had very bad breaks in others to fall behind by large margins.

That’s the worst when you already have personnel issues as a team. But these guys have never quit, and you can see it in them when they play. The first real sign of this was against the Florida Gators at home.

UT committed six turnovers and allowed a safety en route to falling behind 33-3 to Florida. But they kept fighting and would have made it a game had the defense not gotten too tired in the fourth quarter.

The next week, against the Georgia Bulldogs, the Vols fell behind 24-0. But they managed to score back to back touchdowns to cut it to two scores in the fourth, and it was only after the defense got too tired again that they fell apart.

What’s clear, though, is this team has a lot of fight in it. This is why Jeremy Pruitt got emotional talking about their last loss. He knows as they continue to develop, the effort wont be a problem. And that’s a good situation to be in.