Tennessee football report card: Grading the Vols in 34-3 Florida loss

Coaching

Offensive play-calling: B+

Jim Chaney’s play-calling had Tennessee football moving on the first drive before a K’Rojhn Calbert penalty. He then dialed up two touchdown passes that weren’t executed on the second drive, and on the third drive he dialed up another touchdown pass that wasn’t executed. That’s 17 points at least the Vols left on the board. Chaney’s only flaw was not taking enough deep shots, but his calls were there. Players just didn’t execute.

Defensive play-calling: A-

Again, Derrick Ansley was limited like Chaney. Players weren’t executing, as Nigel Warrior was out of position on the first drive on a play, and the defensive line could not get a push. Still, Ansley dialed up nice blitz packages to make up for it. He couldn’t do anything, though, once Dan Mullen started going to the screen pass. But this was not his fault. His play-calling was good enough to warrant an A-, especially when he dialed up that blitz that forced the fumble early on.

Overall coaching grade: B-

Jeremy Pruitt is as limited as Jim Chaney and Derrick Ansley when his players don’t execute. That was the case on Saturday. Now, Pruitt still only gets a B because of the fact that he switched quarterbacks between Jarrett Guarantano and Brian Maurer, creating a lack of consistency. But what was happening wasn’t his fault.

You can’t blame coaches when players don’t execute, and the Vols never did execute on Saturday. That’s an issue on its own. Pruitt does deserve blame for maybe not helping his players focus, but he had the whole staff draw up a good game plan for Florida. As a result, he gets a slightly above-average grade. The big thing that kills him is the number of penalties UT committed.