Tennessee football: Five Vols who need to keep up performances past bye

He hasn’t punted enough to be on any list. And he did struggle some against the Florida Gators. But overall, Joe Doyle has built off of his freshman All-American campaign as a punter and is looking even better as a sophomore despite Jeremy Pruitt inexplicably having him split reps at times with Paxton Brooks.

For the season, Doyle has punted nine times and is averaging 44.4 yards a punt. If he had enough punts, that average would put him in the top 30 of punters in the nation, and it’s a significant improvement over his 41.1 yards per punt from 2018, which is what earned him national recognition to begin with.

On top of his averages, Doyle has sent three punts beyond 50 yards and pinned three of them inside the 20-yard line. This is all with a rough game against Florida to skew his averages. Simply put, he has been very solid for Tennessee football, so much so that he was retroactively added to the Ray Guy watch list during the bye despite not being on the preseason watch list.

Doyle can be a huge advantage for the Vols if they ever get locked in another defensive battle like they did against the BYU Cougars, where field position really could come into play. He hasn’t had the chance to make a difference yet, but his play has been good enough to warrant a shoutout.