Tennessee football blame pie: Who’s responsible for Vols’ 35-13 Alabama loss?

Lots of people came through for Tennessee football, but a few Volunteers made critical mistakes that cost them in their loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide.

It’s fair to blame the officials for lots of bad calls, and we’ll still have more to write about there. However, Tennessee football had many of its own make critical mistakes in its 35-13 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday night.

The Vols deserve a lot of credit for keeping the game close and having a chance to cut it to one score midway through the fourth quarter. But it’s their fault and their fault alone they didn’t cut it to one score.

Who’s most responsible? Well, it was pretty easy to nail it down because the blowout came to just a few specific plays. So here is our Tennessee football blame pie. These are the people at fault for the Vols’ losing to Alabama on the road.

Offensive tackles: 40 percent

Nobody made mistakes more consistently than Darnell Wright and Wanya Morris. They are developing up front, but they still looked like freshmen in this game. The two combined to commit four penalties for 30 yards.

Wright had 20 alone, including a false start and a holding on back to back plays that forced the Vols to settle for a field goal on one drive. Morris had a holding that forced them to settle for a field goal on another drive. Then Wright missed a block to allow another drive to be killed by a Terrell Lewis sack. While the interior line played fine, the tackles still have work to do.

Jarrett Guarantano: 40 percent

Penalties by Morris and Wright cost Tennessee football eight points, and a missed block by Wright stopped another drive. However, Jarrett Guarantano completed fewer than 50 percent of his passes after coming in for Brian Maurer. He missed Tim Jordan on a wheel route for an easy touchdown on one play.

But most importantly, he was responsible for a 14-point swing. Down 28-13 and on the one-yard line, Guarantano inexplicably tried to go up and over on a quarterback sneak. That resulted in a fumble, and the Tide returned it 100 yards for a touchdown. As a result, a play that should have made it 28-20 in the fourth made it 35-13.

Jim Chaney: 10 percent

Overall, Jim Chaney had a solid game plan. And he made some very well-designed passing and running plays. So we don’t want to pile onto him too much, as things would not be his fault if players were actually executing.

But he was a bit too predictable at times. The offense took forever to line up on most of his wildcat calls. And before that Guarantano fumble, he called three straight running plays inside the five with no creativity, which forced the 4th and goal to begin with. So he deserves some blame.

Darrell Taylor: 5 percent

It’s hard to name Darrell Taylor here. He single-handedly kept a drive alive with an unnecessary roughness penalty. UT was down 21-13 at the time and had gotten a stop. Bama then scored a TD. That would naturally put Taylor higher on the list. But the penalty called on him was horrible, so we’re giving him a break by putting his blame at five percent.

Jauan Jennings: 5 percent

Darrell Taylor is not at fault for being flagged on a killer play. Jauan Jennings, meanwhile, is responsible for a killer play that didn’t actually mean much after Tennessee football got an interception on the next drive. He dropped a pass from Brian Maurer that was intercepted, killing the Vols’ second offensive drive. So both players get five percent.

Lots of people deserve credit for UT hanging tough with Alabama, but a few key mistakes here and there turned it into a blowout game. These Vols were responsible for it becoming a blowout against Tennessee football, and that’s why we had to call them out.