Stocks to sell
Defensive line
Honestly, Tennessee football’s defensive line was nowhere near the problem on Saturday. Advanced metrics suggest the Vols are actually pretty solid up front. However, Jeremy Pruitt was right to bring up that they should use their size to deflect more passes at the line of scrimmage. That could stop some of the quick slants happening.
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More importantly, though, is the elephant in the room. Pruitt firing defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh and taking over himself has now turned this unit into a disaster. You have to believe that this will not work out and the players will not respond well. As a result, the line’s stock is tanking, and it’s definitely a unit you should sell.
Offensive tackles
For two straight weeks now, the offensive tackles have been disastrous. It’s officially a trend, so we say you have to sell it, as it’ll only get worse. While the interior blocking was fine on Saturday, multiple mistakes were made on the outside. Darnell Wright killed the Vols’ first drive by mising a block allowing Jarrett Guarantano to get sacked.
Later in the first half, Wanya Morris had a chop-block penalty, the same penalty Princeton Fant had, which forced J.T. Shrout to throw his interception that the Kentucky Wildcats got a field goal out of. Morris then missed a block in the second half that got Guarantano sacked and killed another drive, and then K’Rojhn Calbert missed a block that forced Guarantano to get rid of a pass.
Simply put, the offensive tackles were awful for the Vols. At this point, though, a lot of what we thought we knew about Tennessee football is not true. The opposite appears to be true. This is the state of the Vols right now. We’ll see who moves up and then falls further behind against the Alabama Crimson Tide.