Tennessee football: 10 offseason improvements Vols must make before 2019
3. Containing balanced attacks
Huge wins over the Auburn Tigers and Kentucky Wildcats had fans overreacting massively to the future of Tennessee football. But lost in those victories were the real problem that faced this team all season long.
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Jeremy Pruitt’ defense, while serviceable, struggled severely against balanced attacks, particularly in the SEC. Kentucky had no passing game. Auburn had no pass protection. That’s why the Vols were able to win those games.
But the rest of their SEC opponents had balance, which is why they were able to beat the Vols. Even the South Carolina Gamecocks, despite having lesser talent, had balance in general. That’s why they handled Pruitt and co. and came back in the second half.
After beating Kentucky, the Missouri Tigers and Vanderbilt Commodores both torched the UT defense. One is significantly better than the other, but the balance of both is why the Vols looked so bad each time.
That’s a huge thing Pruitt needs to work on. Defense is supposed to be his speciality, and if he can’t contain such offenses, then the Vols are in serious trouble in the future. We tend to believe he can, but he’s clearly got to get the right guys in there.
Pruitt relied on his elite starters up front to win both SEC games, and they’re all gone. So the Vols’ secondary is going to have to step up a lot more next year, and they’ll need more big plays from their linebackers as well. We already talked about the defensive line depth. In general, all SEC opponents to beat them scored at least 38 points. When they had balance, the Vols could do nothing.