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

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 08: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers brings his team onto the field prior to a game against the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers 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: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers brings his team onto the field prior to a game against the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers 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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9. The secondary hasn’t been atrocious.

This is another positive that’s more damning with faint praise. However, you have to understand the context behind it. Tennessee football is transitioning to a 3-4 defense right now, and they have very little depth up front.

When such a transition happens, the defensive backs are the most vulnerable. Just look at what happened to this team in 2012. They would have gone 11-1 if not for the horrendous play of the defense, and it was largely in the secondary.

To make matters worse for this team, the unit lost all of its cornerbacks from a year ago. So Jeremy Pruitt had a ton of work to do to figure out who could play at the position, and he’s had to rely on two freshmen in Bryce Thompson and Alontae Taylor much of the time.

However, amidst all of this, the secondary has not been terrible. They have never really played great, but the West Virginia Mountaineers were the only team they were awful against. And that was against a Heisman Trophy candidate in Will Grier.

For the year, the Vols are giving up fewer than 200 passing yards a game. Now, to be fair, that is massively skewed by their match-ups against the UTEP Miners and ETSU Bucs. However, it’s skewed the other way by their opener against WVU.

Over the last two weeks, they have had some bad plays, no doubt. But they have also given up fewer than 200 yards each of the past two weeks against the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs. So by not being horrible, there are signs of life for this team going forward if they can work out other issues. After all, we thought this would be the worst part of the squad.

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