Wiedmer: Perfect or not, UT win a good start

NASHVILLE - If you're a University of Tennessee football fan this morning, your first inclination may be to worry mightily about Oklahoma's upcoming visit to Neyland Stadium. After all, no matter how good the Big Orange offense looks after Saturday's 59-30 win over Bowling Green, the defense did surrender those 30 points to the Falcons.

It also gave up 557 total yards, 24 first downs and 433 net passing yards while failing to intercept a single one of Bowling Green's 51 passes.

No wonder third-year UT coach Butch Jones noted afterward that "we have to make big, big strides moving forward. I think (Oklahoma) is a great, great football team - one of the most underrated football teams in the country."

It was impossible for UT to be more underrated heading into this game and still be in the Top 25, since the Vols entered the first weekend ranked No. 25.

That said, 59 points is nothing to take lightly, especially when two touchdowns were called back for penalties, the offense rushed for 399 yards, passed for 205, finished with 604 total yards and turned in eight touchdown drives that took four minutes or less.

"We take great pride in running the football," said senior offensive left tackle Kyler Kerbyson. "We ran for over 300 yards at South Carolina last year, and we blew that out of the water tonight."

This isn't to say this was Oklahoma the Vols were running against. Good as running backs Jalen Hurd (123 yards and three TDs) and Alvin Kamara (144 yards and two TDs) were in gobbling up Nissan Stadium's grass real estate, the Falcons gave up 59 points to Western Kentucky last season. And 68 to Wisconsin. And 51 to Northern Illinois.

These guys may really be this good, especially with quarterback Josh Dobbs tacking on 89 rushing yards and a sixth rushing touchdown, but best to let the Oklahoma game play out before arguing that Jones should install the wishbone.

Still, it's the defense that would seem to be the weakness until you realize that the Falcons returned 10 offensive starters from a year ago. And that's without gifted senior quarterback Matt Johnson, who was injured last season.

"Some of the deep balls they hit, we'll get that corrected this week," said linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin.

If they do, it may be because they'll have defensive backs coach Willie Martinez back to coach against those deep balls. In one of the more bizarre sidebars from a bizarre game that was put on hold for 80 minutes early in the third quarter because of a lightning delay, Martinez was suspended for the Bowling Green game because of a secondary recruiting violation he committed in 2014.

"Not having him available hurt us," Jones said. "He brings so much to the (coaches') box. And this was because of a secondary violation that occurred 16 months ago."

But if Martinez's forced absence appeared to rattle the young Vols secondary in the opening half, the 80-minute delay appeared to calm them early in the second half.

"We took their socks off, made them put on fresh socks," Jones said. "We got them some hot dogs. Put on some music. Some of the guys were dancing."

Said the redshirt senior Kerbyson with a grin: "I did not eat any hot dogs. I've been around long enough to know better than that."

Not since the 2007 season has a UT football team known enough to win a game as a ranked squad. Most of the current Vols hadn't played their first high school varsity game by then. So to worry too much over what wasn't perfect during this odd, very long game - more than five hours passed between opening kick and closing horn - isn't fair to all that went right.

"I think it's really nice the way we meshed," Kerbyson said.

It was nice. It is nice. It figures to remain nice going forward.

Especially as long as all the Vols, especially on the defensive side of the ball, heed Jones' assessment that "we have to get better in a hurry."

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com