Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ 45-42 win at Kentucky

3. Tackling issues caused defensive woes.

Yes, the reason Tennessee football couldn’t get off the field was solely due to issues when it came to tackling. This was particularly a problem for linebackers. All night, the Vols were in the right position to make the play to win the game. However, they couldn’t make the tackle, and that proved costly so many times.

We’re seeing why linebacker was always going to be a concern for this team. Jeremy Banks and Aaron Beasley can get into the right positions, but they can’t get off blocks and can’t always wrap up. Neither was originally a linebacker. To overcompensate, they got over-aggressive at times, and that’s often when you saw them out of position to allow third down conversion.

Will Levis was on track to be the fourth straight quarterback to have his best rushing performance all year against the Vols. That was, of course, until Byron Young got his two sacks, which was crucial to the outcome.

However, beyond Levis and beyond the time of possession, Kentucky marched right down the field on the Vols on their first drive because UT couldn’t tackle in the run game. There’s a reason that, in addition to Levis’ 47 rushing yards, Chris Rodriguez Jr. had 22 carries for 109 yards and Kavosiey Smoke had 11 carries for 53 yards and a touchdown.