Tennessee football: 10 things for Vols to work on during bye week

7. Limiting lapses in the secondary

Similar to the running back mistakes, Tennessee football’s secondary has been solid overall but has killed itself with key lapses. And these lapses have been disastrous, often times making the difference between winning and losing.

If you take out the random lapses, the Vols score at least ugly wins over the Georgia State Panthers and BYU Cougars to get to the bye week at 3-1. And there’s a chance they make it a game against the Florida Gators, even if Kyle Trask was very efficient throwing the ball.

Against Georgia State, the safeties had too many plays out of position when trying to contain Dan Ellington. It allowed him to burn them on just enough passing plays, which ended up being the difference in why the Vols couldn’t stop the offense.

The unit corrected things and shut down a very elite quarterback in Zach Wilson for BYU. But then Alontae Taylor got burned once while Nigel Warrior took a bad angle, and that set up the game-tying field goal for the Cougars. Warrior again took multiple bad angles at Florida on the Gators’ first drive, which is why they went up 7-0 so easily with an early score.

Overall, the unit has actually performed pretty well. But they keep making one or two mental lapses a game, and those lapses prove disastrous. Starting a freshman cornerback in Warren Burrell while Bryce Thompson gets re-acclimated may have had something to do with that. So the bye can help them fix these things. But they have to fix them.