Tomorrow afternoon, the Tennessee Volunteers will be facing off with their most hated rival – the Alabama Crimson Tide. Coached by Nick Saban, Alabama has been a powerhouse in recent years, dominating the series. Tomorrow there is as much optimism about this game for Vol fans as there has been in a long time. Alabama is still a powerful opponent, but the Vols have played well in every game this season and competed well against very good opponents.
What a game. The Tennessee Volunteers pulled of a upset on Saturday, giving head coach Butch Jones a signature win over the Georgia Bulldogs, 38-31. Jones and the Vols battled back from down 24-3, ending the game by outscoring the Bulldogs 35-7 down the stretch. There are many aspects of this game worth a review, and there will be more articles later this week, but one thing that jumped out at me was how Mike DeBord made adjustments to his red zone gameplan that completely stymied the Bulldogs and helped Tennessee score 4 key touchdowns. Continue reading “How the Vols Scored in the Red Zone”
Perhaps the most used play in the Tennessee Volunteers offense is the inside zone. The Vols are a run first offense, and inside zone is a perfect physical, downhill running play that fits what the Vols are trying to do. Defenses have many ways to attack inside zone, and one way that they do that is to read the offensive line’s blocks and flow aggressively to the playside. When a defense is aggressive in flowing to the playside, something Butch Jones likes to go to is a concept called Iso Weak.
Anyone familiar with SEC football has heard the narrative - Tennessee can’t close out games. As of now, they sit at 2-3, with all three losses coming after the Vols led by 14 or more. The latest meltdown came Saturday versus Arkansas, when the Vols blew a 14-0 lead and eventually fell 24-20. While the defense has issues of its own, the biggest issue has been the offense. Josh Dobbs and the passing game have not lived up to expectations and star running back Jalen Hurd has been left to try to win games on his own. Continue reading “What’s Up With the Offense?”
After falling 28-27 to the Florida Gators, there are quite a few Tennessee Volunteer fans concerned about Butch Jones and the coaching staff. The Vols loss came after Tennessee gave up a 13 point lead in the fourth quarter, the second time in three games that Tennessee has led by 13 or more in the fourth and blown their lead. So what’s going on? Are the coaches really to blame? This post aims to examine what went wrong and how Coach Jones can fix it. Continue reading “How Poor Game Management Cost the Vols Versus Florida - Part 2”
After falling 28-27 to the Florida Gators, there are quite a few Tennessee Volunteer fans concerned about Butch Jones and the coaching staff. The Vols loss came after Tennessee gave up a 13 point lead in the fourth quarter, the second time in three games that Tennessee has led by 13 or more in the fourth and blown their lead. So what’s going on? Are the coaches really to blame? This post aims to examine what went wrong and how Coach Jones can fix it. Continue reading “How Poor Game Management Cost the Vols Versus Florida - Part 1”
