Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ 30-17 loss at Auburn

2. Vols passing attack could not handle Auburn blitz.

Kevin Steele flat-out owned Jim Chaney. We know about Chaney’s aversion to any pass play that’s not slow-developing, and the Auburn Tigers exploited that to perfection. It didn’t matter that the interior blocking brought balance to the offense with a solid rushing attack. Tennessee football’s passing attack couldn’t match it.

After a solid first half by Jarrett Guarantano, these dialed up blitzes rendered him useless. Auburn finished the game with four sacks and forced the UT quarterbacks to get rid of the ball quickly throughout the day.

Sure, there was the occasional crossing route, but Chaney’s way to neutralize this was a play-action or a misdirection. Had he called a screen at some point, which he never did, he may have finally stopped it, but he never did.

It hit its worst point late in the third quarter. Trailing 13-10, UT was driving, and on 2nd and 7 from the Auburn 12, Chaney abandoned the run that was working so well and called a pass. An Auburn blitz forced Guarantano to rush the pass, and it led to a pick-six, which put the Tigers up 20-10 and really clinched the game for them.