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

1. It took lucky plays for Tennessee football’s offense to keep it interesting for a while.

Again, everybody will blame the defense, and they should, but these offensive numbers are a bit skewed, so don’t let them off the hook. Tennessee football gained over 500 yards. Much of that was meaningless, and even more of it was helped out by a bit of craziness.

The standout crazy play was Hendon Hooker’s touchdown pass to Bru McCoy at the end of the first half. Hooker’s pass was tipped and nearly intercepted, but it landed right in McCoy’s hands. By the way, that was a third down play too, so if it falls incomplete, the Vols have to settle for a field goal and go into halftime down 35-20 rather than 35-24.

Then, in the second half, on their final offensive drive that was potentially making things interesting, a pass interference in which Jalin Hyatt was hit despite not even looking for the ball kept the drive alive on third down. There was also a facemask in which the back, not front, of Squirrel White’s helmet was grabbed, and that’s technically a rule.

Of course, Tennessee football wasn’t even able to score on that drive, but it certainly kept things close for a bit longer, as the Vols only trailed 42-31 then. Simply put, they had a few breaks go there way, skewing the offensive performance, but that unit had its own issues all night.