Tennessee football: Five Vols to watch for vs. Chattanooga Mocs

As a senior trying to live up to his All-American father’s legacy with Tennessee football, Nigel Warrior needs to start righting the ship. In the opener against the Georgia State Panthers, injuries forced him to be the primary guy responsible for containing Dan Ellington in that dual-threat offense. He failed miserably.

A week later, Warrior was partially responsible for that Hail Mary to set up the game-tying field goal. Alontae Taylor was the one who got torched, but Warrior had the chance to make the tackle near midfield. Given the fact that the BYU Cougars had no timeouts left, that tackle would have been huge.

But Warrior took a horrible angle and missed it, allowing BYU to get into UT territory for the game-tying field goal. Well, this week, Warrior is the one guy on this list who has another real test. Mocs Quarterback Nick Tiano was once with the Mississippi State Bulldogs and is listed as a top small-school NFL prospect on NFL Draft Diamonds.

Now, to be fair, he is only averaging 201 yards a game, is only completing 56 percent of his passes and has one touchdown to two interceptions. But he has talent. And as the main guy in the secondary who has struggled recently, Warrior has to step up and turn things around Saturday.