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Tennessee football report card: Grading the Vols in loss to Alabama

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 20: Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers on the sidelines during the second half of the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Alabama won 58-21. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 20: Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers on the sidelines during the second half of the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Alabama won 58-21. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images /

Tennessee football’s 58-21 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide clearly had some blatant negatives. Here are the Volunteers’ grades against Bama.

When you lose by 37 points at home, it’s almost always impossible to point out positives in a game. But when you do it to the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2018, things get a bit easier. That’s the case for Tennessee football after their loss at Neyland Stadium on Saturday.

In falling to 3-4 on the year, the Vols were one of many teams to be embarrassed by Nick Saban’s Tide and Tua Tagovailoa. But, surprisingly, there were some good things in the game, enough for Rocky Top to be excited about the future.

After all, Alabama took longer to score on their first offensive drive against Tennessee football than they have against any other team all year. The Vols were also the first team on the season to have a 100-yard receiver on that defense.

Okay, so they still lost by 37 points. And the brutality continues as they travel to Columbia to take on the South Carolina Gamecocks this weekend. But still, you can pinpoint the good things along with the biggest reasons for the loss.

That’s what we’re going to do with our report card. Yes, to be fair, we’re going to weigh it a bit because of the team they played. Against Alabama you could do everything right and still get beat on a play. That actually happened very often on Saturday.

It was enough for Jeremy Pruitt to call out his players at halftime, but remember, he has Alabama standards for his players as he tries to build a team. Although that’s a good thing, we have to take a more realistic approach.

We’re going to do that here with our grades. It wasn’t all fails for every unit. As always, we break down the offense, defense, special teams and coaching. So let’s get started. This is our Tennessee football report card following their 58-21 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide.

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