Tennessee football Orange and White game report card

Defensive grades

Defensive line: D

This includes edge rushers, to be fair, and with one team sack, Tennessee football got no pressure up front. A big reason for the success of the quarterbacks was all the time they had to throw the ball. Harrison Bailey even impressed people with pocket presence at times, and anybody who saw him play last year knows he doesn’t have that. It was on the defensive line.

Linebackers: F

Take out a couple of plays by the edge rushers, and this unit was awful. To be fair, they were playing insanely short-handed, but they consistently got out of position, burned in the passing game and the run game. Quarterbacks having an easy time to throw was a result of their failures in coverage and to stay in position. It was a complete fail.

Secondary: D+

Warren Burrell had a pick-six, which counted hugely against Hendon Hooker given the fact that there is a quarterback competition. However, the pass defenses were atrocious as a whole, as we’ve documented with the quarterback play. That one pick-six is what almost got this grade to average, although it was still a problem.

Overall defensive grade: D-

If the offense was great, the defense was horrendous, as we broke down on our opening slide, and that was the case in this game. Outside of the pick-six, both the Orange and White defenses struggled severely, and that may be a concern going forward.