Tennessee football report card in 52-49 win vs. Alabama

Coaching grades

Offensive play-calling: A+

The first touchdown drive for Tennessee football and Jalin Hyatt’s first two touchdown receptions on subsequent drives were the result of perfect offensive play-calling. Josh Heupel and Alex Golesh were geniuses all day once again and deserve a ton of credit. There’s no debating they were miles ahead of Pete Golding.

Defensive play-calling: A+

Despite the Vols allowing 49 points, Tim Banks outcoached Bill O’Brien. Banks dialed up the perfect blitz packages all day, and the only reason they often didn’t work out was because Bryce Young made great plays while the Vols were severely undermanned in the secondary. Finishing the game with four stops, though, is a huge testament to Banks.

Overall coaching grade: A

There’s one mistake that keeps this from being an A+, and it’s the end of the first half. The Vols were trying a hail mary with Joe Milton III because they didn’t have enough time left, but they left a timeout on the field. Earlier in the drive, they wasted too much clock. Had they used that timeout, they could’ve run another play to reach field goal range.

Outside of that one issue, though, coaching was perfect. Josh Heupel kept Tennessee football poised in the second half every time Alabama landed a punch, a huge deal, and when you combine that with the great play-calling, this is easily an A. The staff as a whole was amazing.