Tennessee football Orange and White game report card

Coaching grades

Offensive play-calling: A

Josh Heupel’s focus is tempo and spreading the field. He certainly did that for Tennessee football in this game, as there were 99 plays in total called in the game. Typical to a Heupel system, though, efficiency was better, as the Orange only had 39 plays.

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With so much scoring on both sides and a proper amount of balance, as there were more run plays, the offensive coaching won the day. Heupel ran to set up the pass, and the passing game became dominant off of that.

Defensive play-calling: B

It’s actually hard to blame Tim Banks and the defensive play-calling from the struggles on Saturday. As we noted, many of the big plays came with walk-ons in the game and linebackers getting out of position. Also, the defensive line got no pressure.

All of those things are a result of play on the field, not actual scheming. Now, you can blame the way Banks and the defensive staff may have approached the spring practices, but the play in the game itself is not on them.

Overall head coaching grade: N/A

Given the fact that this was a spring game, we couldn’t give Heupel a head coaching grade yet. There wasn’t enough situational football for us to judge. Tennessee football seems to be in good hands with him, but Saturday alone wasn’t going to prove that.