Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ 35-13 loss at Alabama

1. Penalties were a killer.

The Vols ruined multiple drives due to penalties. They were inside the 10-yard line on both field goal drives, but holding penalties ruined their chances at a touchdown. Then they got a stop while Alabama was on offense, only to see the drive kept alive by an unnecessary roughness penalty.

Tennessee football’s first drive stalled inside the five-yard line after Brian Maurer was already hurt. Down 14-7, they had made it 1st and goal from right at the five. But Jarrett Guarantano had his helmet knocked off and had to come out for a play. On that play, Jauan Jennings was about to run a trick play on a wildcat, but the refs called an inadvertent whistle.

That was a questionable call, one that we’ll analyze later. But when Guarantano came back in, Darnell Wright had a false start. Then K’Rojhn Calbert got called for a holding penalty that forced them to settle for a field goal.

In the second half, down 21-10, UT was at the Alabama seven. But Wanya Morris was called for an extremely questionable holding penalty, and that pushed them back to the 17, forcing them to settle for a field goal again.

Finally, Darrell Taylor got called for an unnecessary roughness after a rush on Mac Jones. He got that penalty after the Vols got a third down stop down by only one touchdown as well, and Bama scored on that drive to go up 28-13. Again, the call was questionable.

But regardless of how questionable the calls were, those penalties were killers. And when you look the numbers, they were killers all night. UT had 13 penalties for 93 yards despite being in the top 50 in fewest penalties a game before this outing. That was incredibly problematic.