Despite a 2-3 record, Tennessee football has had some standout individuals so far in 2018. Here are the top Volunteers performers heading into the bye.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for the rough start to Jeremy Pruitt’s first season as head coach of the Tennessee football program. However, the reality is that the Vols just don’t have enough players yet to be able to compete at a high level.
The players they do have are learning new systems on both sides of the ball, many of them missed half the offseason with the chance to further develop, and they were thrown to the fire early by playing three of their first five games against Top 25 teams, two of whom are undefeated and may be national title contenders. What do you expect would happen in that scenario?
Anyway, for some reason, we’re keeping a positive attitude surrounding Tennessee football heading into the bye week, at least for now. And part of that positivity includes taking a look at some of the players who are continuing to fight and produce despite the issues.
As we get set to look at the Vols top performers through five games and heading into the bye week, we want to stress that some of these guys may still have some improving to do. They may have had some bad games as well, and they share in the blame for this record.
However, the point is they’ve also done a lot to help carry this team and keep the fight there. And heading into the bye, these are the players that Pruitt needs to highlight as guys who are producing. The rest of the team needs to get up to their level.
Our process in picking these players involves referring to our Smokey Points of the past five weeks plus overall cumulative seasons stats. We can’t solely rely on Smokey Points because some of those winners have also had awful games. Others have been so consistent that they just belong.
So let’s go ahead and take a look at the guys who can keep the Vols afloat and maybe help them turn things around during this week off. These are the top five Tennessee football players for the 2018 season so far heading into the bye week.