Tennessee football blame pie in 34-13 loss to Aggies

Here’s who’s responsible for the Tennessee football Volunteers’ loss to Texas A&M.

It wasn’t as close as it looked. Tennessee football lost its final game of the regular season in a 34-13 blowout against the No. 5 ranked Texas A&M Aggies. In the process, the Vols finished the season with a 3-7 record and a ton of questions.

Many of the usual suspects were at fault for Rocky Top in this loss. However, not having Derrick Ansley and Jay Graham on the sidelines was probably a distraction, and not having Eric Gray did hamper the offense. Brian Maurer being out was probably another distraction as well.

Anyway, Tennessee football was awful on third down defense, could never get off the field and made some critical mistakes at the worst time. Let’s look at those mistakes. This is our blame pie for the Vols in their loss to Texas A&M.

Quarterbacks: 25 percent

They’re still young, but Harrison Bailey and J.T. Shrout both made crucial mistakes. Shrout has the bigger arm, but he kept overthrowing passes. One of his overthrow was a fumble out of bounds that cost the Vols six yards and killed a drive of theirs near midfield.

Bailey, meanwhile, killed two drives by getting sacked due to his inability to get rid of the ball on time. One of those sacks resulted in a fumble and spotted Texas A&M a field goal. He was sacked three times on the day, and this is a major issue he needs to clean up.

Deandre Johnson: 20 percent

With only one tackle in the game, Deandre Johnson struggled. His mistakes proved costly, though. After UT went up 7-0, they brought up a 3rd and 10 on Texas A&M’s first drive. However, Johnson then jumped offside, bringing up a 3rd and 5, which they converted. They eventually scored a touchdown on that drive.

Johnson later had an illegal hands to the face penalty after the Vols seemingly got a stop on a 3rd and 14 on Texas A&M’s final offensive drive of the half. At the time, UT was down 17-13 and poised to get the ball back. However, that penalty kept A&M on the field, and they scored another touchdown to take control.

Veteran skill players: 20 percent

Josh Palmer and Ty Chandler really get called out here. Their mistakes killed one drive. Palmer gets 15 percent of the blame. He and Chandler had back to back false start penalties when UT had the ball near midfield.

That brought up 3rd and 18. However, Shrout then seemingly made a perfect pass to connect with Palmer, but he dropped it. As a result, Palmer and Chandler killed a potential scoring drive for Tennessee football, mistakes that people with their experience shouldn’t have made.

Pass defense: 20 percent

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Alontae Taylor had a red zone interception, Kellen Mond only had 281 yards and the rushing defense seemed as bad by allowing over 200 yards on the ground. However, the pass defense was still the problem overall.

Mond completed 26-of-32 passes. He was super-efficient all day, and he consistently converted on third down. That allowed the Aggies to stay on the field often way longer than they should have, and that’s why the rush defense got tired.

Jim Chaney: 15 percent

Not having Gray was going to limit Jim Chaney, but he didn’t have to abandon the run game the way he did. Chandler only had seven carries on the day. Without Gray and with two inexperienced quarterbacks, he should have gotten somewhere around 25 carries.

Regardless, Chaney’s play-calling was part of another inept offensive performance by Tennessee football. It hasn’t been all his fault this year, but he didn’t mix things up properly, and that’s a huge reason the offense stalled outside of one great drive and one great throw and catch.