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Tennessee football report card: Grading Vols in 41-21 win vs. Gamecocks

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - OCTOBER 26: Jauan Jennings #15 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates defeating the South Carolina Gamecocks after the game at Neyland Stadium on October 26, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - OCTOBER 26: Jauan Jennings #15 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates defeating the South Carolina Gamecocks after the game at Neyland Stadium on October 26, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images
Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images /

There hasn’t been a more complete performance all year for Tennessee football in their victory over South Carolina. Here are the Volunteers’ grades.

If report cards in school more heavily weighed improvement over time rather than taking everything into account equally, Tennessee football would be starting to ace everything. The Vols as a program took strides in their win over the South Carolina Gamecocks that they had not shown all season.

A 41-21 win over a 3-4 team led by Will Muschamp to move to 3-5 on the year is much bigger than it looks on paper. After all, it’s UT’s first win over Muschamp after starting off 0-7, and it now opens up their bowl game possibilities, despite those being still slightly less than 50 percent likely.

All of that happened because of one of the most complete performances the program put together in a long time. There were still some mistakes, but Tennessee football actually overcame those mistakes this time from great play elsewhere. That hasn’t usually happened with the Vols.

As we get set to dish out the grades for the Vols in their huge victory, note that it wasn’t hard to find fault when it came to mistakes. What was hard was analyzing how much we should weigh those mistakes when you look at all the things different units did to make up for those mistakes.

To be fair, there were some units that were flawless, and we’ll be able to name those. Others were surprisingly very good. And the ones that struggled, as we mentioned, came around when they needed to, signifying a major turning point for Rocky Top.

Simply put, they aced their performance overall. That may be a bit of a spoiler, but there was just no way to deny it. Anybody who saw the game, particularly the second half, would have said the same thing.

But who stood out the most? As usual, we’ll break things down by analyzing offense, defense, special teams and coaching and the different units on each side of the ball. This is our Tennessee football report card from the Vols’ win over the South Carolina Gamecocks.

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