Tennessee football blame pie: Who’s responsible for Vols’ 43-14 Georgia loss?
Lots of people are responsible for Tennessee football’s 43-14 loss to the UGA Bulldogs. Here is our blame pie for the Volunteers against the Dawgs.
Even if there are some positives to take away, the fact of the matter is Tennessee football lost 43-14 at home to another SEC opponent and fell to 1-4 on the year. You can excuse it by bringing up how good the Georgia Bulldogs are, but the Vols still have not beaten an FBS school year, and they have lost to two Group of Five schools at home.
Meanwhile, their two games against Power Five teams have resulted in losses by 29 and 31 points, and they did allow Georgia to cover. This was all coming off a bye week, although Kirby Smart’s team was coming off one to be fair.
Anyway, taking all that into account, there’s no way to ignore the fact that somebody has to be responsible for what happened. And we have a few people to call out. This is our blame pie following Tennessee football’s loss at home to Georgia Saturday.
Defensive line: 40 percent
Nobody was more consistently bad than the defensive line. The only reason it’s not above 50 percent is due to the fact that they did get a stop on 4th and short at one point. But the Vols continue to struggle replacing all their starters from last year, and they allowed the Dawgs to rack up 238 yards on the ground and average nearly six yards a carry while not getting any sacks.
The lack of pressure from the front is why Jake Fromm converted 24-of-29 passes. Jeremy Pruitt and Derrick Ansley were limited on what they could do because these guys got no push, and it’s specifically in the middle. So more work needs to be done if the Vols are going to start winning.
Kicking game: 25 percent
Now this is a huge surprise. Joe Doyle showed signs of inconsistency a few weeks ago, and he has slowly gotten worse when it comes to punting. On Saturday, he was awful. He averaged only 33 yards a punt on five punts, and only one of them went inside the 20 while one went only 13 yards. There was a field goal and three touchdowns scored off of his punts.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Brent Cimaglia had his first miss of the season, one from 47 yards out. Now, he doesn’t get too much blame for missing such a kick. But the combination of those two things could have been maybe a 10 to 20 point swing. So it has to be called out.
Related Story. Smokey Points: Top five Vols performers vs. Georgia. light
Brian Maurer: 20 percent
Don’t worry, we’re not saying pull the plug on Brian Maurer. He showed he’s a gunslinger who’s got great zip on the ball, trusts his receivers and is not afraid to make a decision. That’s why he had 259 yards, two touchdown passes and averaged over nine yards an attempt. But the fact of the matter is Maurer struggled at times.
After being knocked out on a hit, came back in and threw a key interception in the second half with the game still within two possessions. That was right after Jarrett Guarantano had a 14-yard completion. He also had only four yards passing in the third quarter. And he was sacked and fumbled in the fourth on a play that Georgia scored a touchdown off of. So there were some faults.
Secondary: 10 percent
Similar to other games, Tennessee football was mostly solid in the secondary. But there were a few lapses here and there, and they did allow Jake Fromm to complete 24-of-29 passes for 288 yards. So while the defensive line was the main problem, a couple of minor issues by the secondary needed to be called out as well.
Play-calling: 5 percent
Jim Chaney had a predictable 3rd down call when the Vols had the lead and the ball past the Georgia 50 in the second quarter. Derrick Ansley, meanwhile, was limited with his poor defensive line play but did not dial up enough blitzes to make up for it. As a result, these guys don’t get too much blame, but there are a few minor things they could have done better.
dark. Next. Five takeaways from Vols loss to Georgia
Overall, this game was a typical Georgia blowout, as there weren’t too many standout guys, and there weren’t too many glaring failures for Tennessee football. One guy got named on both accounts, and two units were disasters. But there were more positives in this one than previous games, so it’s worth touting. These guys we named just need to show a bit more improvement.