Tennessee football: Five biggest storylines of Vols 2019 season

4. Place kicking becomes the strength of special teams.

For the longest time, Tennessee football has been known as Punter U. Sure, that’s helped by the Colquitt family, as Dustin and Britton Colquitt are still both starting in the NFL. However, neither punter played this decade.

Instead, the Vols had Matt Darr, Michael Palardy, Trevor Daniel and Joe Doyle before turning to Paxton Brooks halfway through this year. Darr and Daniel both played in the NFL. Doyle earned freshman All-American honors in 2018.

However, punting took a major step back this year, shockingly, for the Vols. With Doyle and Brooks splitting time, the Vols were ranked No. 12 in the SEC with 40.94 yards per punt. Now, high snaps seemed to be a part of it, as UT had many of them, but either way, they took a step back, and Doyle is now transferring.

Meanwhile, place kicking became a major strength. UT has had solid kicking in the past, but Brent Cimaglia became a star. For the year, Cimaglia hit 23 of 27 field goal attempts. He was nine-of-11 on field goals beyond 40 yards, two-of-two on field goals beyond 50 yards, and he was perfect on extra points. In fact, he’s made all 69 extra point attempts he has tried since arriving on Rocky Top.

Of Cimaglia’s four misses, one was into the wind from 49 yards out, and two more came after very high snaps, one of which was blocked. So there’s one miss all year that we can truly attribute to him. Cimaglia has been a superstar, and he’s coming back in 2020. Simply put, the Vols are in great shape with his leg. Brooks is elite on kickoffs too. That was a superb unit this year.