In the heart of Tennessee’s football season, the heart of the Volunteers defense has been somewhat silent.
Fifth-year senior linebacker Aaron Beasley leads the No. 21 Vols with 45 tackles and 8.5 tackles for loss entering Saturday night’s game (7 on ESPN) at Kentucky. Those numbers through seven games are plenty good, but good was not the goal for the 6-foot-1, 225-pounder from Franklin, Georgia.
“I’m an Aaron Beasley fan, and I feel like he’s one of the better linebackers in the conference,” Vols linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary said this week in a news conference. “The biggest thing with him, and I tell him, is just to empty his tank. I still think there is an even better football player out there than what he’s shown.”
Beasley is not disagreeing with that assessment.
Of his 8.5 lost-yardage stops, five came in the 30-13 downing of Austin Peay on Sept. 9, so just 3.5 have occurred in Tennessee’s six contests against fellow Football Bowl Subdivision programs. Beasley did not have any tackles for loss in last Saturday’s 34-20 loss at Alabama or during the 20-13 topping of Texas A&M the week before.