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Tennessee football: 10 offseason improvements Vols must make before 2019

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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5. Aggression in the passing game

This is actually a no-brainer. Jarrett Guarantano got a lot of credit for completing 62.2 percent of his passes on the season and only throwing three interceptions. But he also only threw 12 touchdown passes and only had 1,907 yards through the air.

Simply put, the focus in the Tennessee football passing game was on maximizing Guarantano’s efficiency numbers and not actually making plays. This was a huge indictment against the now-departed Tyson Helton, and it’s something the new offensive coordinator will need to fix.

Guarantano has too big of an arm, and the Vols have too many big wide receivers, to allow such issues to happen. Josh Palmer, Marquez Callaway and Jauan Jennings are all deep threat guys. So why not take advantage of that as much as possible?

All of these players are coming back next year. So there is no reason for Guarantano not to take more shots downfield. He should be doing a lot of that. It’s the one advantage the Vols have over lots of other teams in the SEC.

This specific advantage is why they were able to beat the Auburn Tigers and Kentucky Wildcats. Sure, there was limited scoring against Kentucky. But big plays in the vertical passing game made the difference.

Going forward, the Vols have a recipe here to be competitive. And that’s reason enough for them to focus on it as much as possible. The fact of the matter is they won’t be much better in a lot of areas next year, just more experienced. So this is where they can make a difference.

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