Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ horrendous 63-38 loss at South Carolina

2. Major blocking mistakes killed multiple drives.

This wasn’t like Tennessee football’s loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, where the Vols committed too many pre-snap penalties due to the crowd noise and were thoroughly confused by Georgia’s pass rush. Instead, the Vols just made too many key errors when it came to blocking, either by the offensive line or tight end, and it proved costly.

It started on the second drive. Javontez Spraggins got hit with a holding penalty and then got beat, allowing a sack. That gave the ball back to South Carolina, which is when they went up two scores. That was the worst sequence of the night when it came to blocking, but it wasn’t the only one.

Later in the game, Jacob Warren got called for an offensive pass interference on a third down pass to Cedric Tillman that would’ve brought up a 4th and short. UT was trailing 42-31 at the time and still trying to make this a game. That penalty, which is a blocking penalty on its own since it’s a pick play, pushed them back to make it 3rd and 25.

Then Spraggins drew a holding penalty on a 3rd and 25 pass, which was rushed because of the pressure.  These seem minor, but when you consider the fact that the Vols needed every score possible, they lost two drives due to these issues.