Tennessee football’s issue go way beyond turnovers

Protecting the ball isn’t the only Tennessee football Volunteers’ problem.

Turnovers are the lead story for Tennessee football over the past couple of weeks, and it makes sense. The Vols had none for the first 10 quarters of the year, and in the second half against the Georgia Bulldogs and first half against the Kentucky Wildcats, they had a combined seven.

Jeremy Pruitt emphasized this issue in his Monday press conference. However, the issues go way beyond that. In spite of all the turnovers against Kentucky, the Vols went into halftime trailing only 17-7 and were set to get the ball to start the second half. That was not a bad situation to be in.

What happened in the second half? Tennessee football had one first down on its first three drives. In fact, they got the ball for one more drive after cutting the deficit to 17-7 in the first half and had a three-and-out. So they had one total first down on four straight drives after making it only a two-score game.

Kentucky, meanwhile, is not known to move the ball a lot. However, they had a touchdown drive, a field goal drive and then another touchdown drive. So they outscored UT 17-0 in the second half without cashing in on any turnovers. The only drive they didn’t score on in that half was at the end of the game, when they were running out the clock Turnovers don’t do anything to explain that.

This also holds true against Georgia. UGA scored 31 points on the Vols without the help of any turnovers, and they did it simply by driving the length of the field. Guarantano’s two fumbles and his pick spotted them only 13 points in a 44-21 win. Also, all three turnovers came on missed blocks by the offensive line. While Guarantano should protect the ball, that’s a deeper issue.

By the way, it’s not like the Vols didn’t get their own breaks in both games. Georgia spotted them a touchdown after a snap sailed over the head of Stetson Bennett that was recovered in the end zone for a touchdown. They also had a turnover in the second half when they were driving again, and they were stopped on a 4th and 1 and 3rd and 4th and goal in the first half.

Against Kentucky, Tennessee football was able to force the first turnover of the game and was already almost in field goal rage. Sure, UK forced all the turnovers after that, but of the 23 points that were due to UT turnovers, either spotted or left on the field, at least three of them would have been spotted by UK in the first place.

We could dig even deeper. The South Carolina Gamecocks only lost to the Vols because of such unforced mistakes, including a pick-six and lack of awareness that caused a muffed punt. You could say that such issues have actually been a net benefit to UT.

So what are the other issues? Where are the mistakes coming from? Well, as we already mentioned, the edge blockers, including tight ends and offensive tackles, are making far too many mistakes. You could attribute all three turnovers against UGA to missed blocks by them.

Although the turnovers against UK had nothing to do with such edge blockers, they still were an issue. Darnell Wright missed a block on the first drive with the Vols already in field goal range, resulting in Guarantano getting sacked and UT being forced to punt it.

J.T. Shrout’s interception was on a desperation pass after a chop-block by Wanya Morris and Princeton Fant brought up 2nd and long. Morris again missed a block in the second half, which killed a drive before it even started.

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How else did the Vols mess up against Kentucky? Guarantano missed an easy deep slant pass on the Vols’ final offensive drive of the first half. Pruitt, known for rolling the dice all year, quit on his offense and decided to punt on 4th and 1 on the opening drive of the second half. Ramel Keyton had a personal foul penalty of his own that killed another UT drive.

See a pattern here? The mistakes on offense include two crucial penalties, two missed blocks, a bad pass and a conservative decision. All but one of those mistakes were on a drive in which Tennessee football punted instead of turning the ball over.

Now, on the defensive side, the issues against Georgia and Kentucky are clear. There have been too many busted coverages in the secondary, allowing quick slants to neutralize the Vols’ blitz packages. They even go back to South Carolina, whose top receiver Shi Smith had 140 yards and a touchdown, and the Missouri Tigers, who moved the ball between the 20s with Connor Bazelak.

Those busted coverages kept Kentucky on the field on their first second-half touchdown drive, and they resulted in a Georgia touchdown on third and long. A targeting call on Deandre Johnson against Georgia kept another touchdown drive alive.

So here’s where we’re at. Against Georgia, UT had a targeting call to keep one touchdown drive alive and a busted coverage to allow another one. That’s 14 points allowed right there. The offense against Kentucky allowed a sack that wrecked a sure field goal drive and then had two crucial penalties, a sack, a missed throw and a dumb decision to punt to kill five other drives.

None of that came down to turnovers. Tennessee football needs a ton of help besides just that issue. Offensive tackles were supposed to be a rising strength of the Vols this year, as was the secondary. Neither has been the case, and that should be just as concerning as the turnovers by the quarterbacks.