Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols 44-21 loss to Georgia

3. Tackling needs to show more discipline.

While the front seven did a great job at filling gaps, Tennessee football had issues with tackling discipline all game. Part of that discipline, by the way, is knowing when to pull up, and Deandre Johnson failed to do that when he had a targeting penalty in the first half that set up the Georgia Bulldogs’ first touchdown. His ejection proved crucial.

Beyond that, though, Henry To’o To’o missed a key tackle in the backfield at one point, and then Quavaris Crouch and Jeremy Banks had trouble wrapping up all day. There were numerous second-efforts by players, including Stetson Bennett on a couple of scrambling plays, that proved beyond costly for the Vols.

In the passing game, receivers had numerous yards after contact. All of this came together to make for a ton of issues. At some point, the yards after contact will be tracked analytically, but the eye test showed that the Vols simply had a ton of trouble wrapping up the running backs, receivers and at times the quarterback. It made for lots of problems throughout the game.

Georgia proved it is significantly better than anybody Jeremy Pruitt’s team had faced in this winning streak. The struggle in tackling alone proved that, but at least the Vols got somewhat of a measuring stick for where they need to go when competing with the top tier teams of the SEC. When you play somebody like the Bulldogs, targeting penalties and missed tackles will kill you.