Tennessee’s defense, which started the season slowly, has shown marked improvement in the past two games, including Saturday’s win over South Carolina.KNOXVILLE – Tennessee’s defense was a disaster last season, statistically the worst in the program’s long history.
That was last year.
The Volunteers by no stretch have an elite defense, but the unit has made clear improvements from 2012 and has played better the past two games than it did in the first month of the season.
In 2012, Tennessee surrendered 89 points to Georgia and South Carolina in a pair of high-scoring losses, but the Vols played the banged-up Bulldogs tough before holding South Carolina 102 yards below its season average in Saturday’s 23-21 upset victory.
“Defensively I thought we played pretty well all game,” first-year Tennessee coach Butch Jones said after the game. “We’ve got to get the quarterback runs, but Connor Shaw’s a talented, talented quarterback, and we knew that coming in, so we talked about being resilient.