Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols 31-27 win at South Carolina

2. Third down conversions were atrocious.

This next piece ties into Jarrett Guarantano’s accuracy issues from our first slide. Tennessee football was an abysmal one-for-11 on third downs on the night, and their only conversion was that one-handed grab from Brandon Johnson we discussed earlier. The play was so amazing it earned a retweet from Chad Johnson himself, who is Brandon Johnson’s cousin.

Anyway, beyond that play, the Vols were awful on third down, and it looks even worse when you analyze how manageable many of those downs were. They only needed six yards or fewer in all but two of those third downs, and two of them were three yards or fewer. It didn’t matter, though. This team simply couldn’t convert on any of them.

Guarantano was sacked on the first third down of the night. Then he had one of his overthrows on a 3rd and 3 in the first half and another one on a 3rd and 6. In the second half, the Vols brought up a 2nd and 2 and 3rd and 2 in South Carolina territory, but they couldn’t convert running it both times. That drive ended in a missed field goal.

Simply put, things were horrible for them all day. If they are going to continue their success throughout the season, this is a major issue that needs to be resolved. Bringing up third and manageable is always the goal, and being unable to convert on it is a huge issue. Jim Chaney and the offense have lots to fix this week here.