KNOXVILLE – Two days and multiple reviews of the game video didn’t tell Josh Dobbs anything he didn’t already know.
The Tennessee quarterback played poorly in the Volunteers’ 24-21 upset loss at South Carolina.
As he did minutes after the defeat in Columbia last Saturday night, Dobbs again owned up to what might have been his worst performance since his freshman season in 2013.
“I still stick by what I said Saturday,” he said Tuesday. “I didn’t play well and obviously it showed. That’s something that can’t happen moving forward. I obviously have a high standard of how I expect to play each and every Saturday just in how I prepare for games both mentally and physically.
“I have to just come out – me, the offense, the team has to come out just locked in and focused to not let that happen again and be prepared this upcoming Saturday and win the week.”
Dobbs was 12-of-26 passing for 161 yards and a touchdown with a pair of interceptions, but those statistics don’t quite illustrate how poorly he played. He one-hopped multiple passes to open receivers, and both interceptions came on poor throws and poor decisions.
The struggles on offense against South Carolina were not limited to Dobbs, though he’s taken the brunt of the criticism in the days following the loss.
“I tell you what, there’s nobody that can be harder on Josh Dobbs than Josh Dobbs,” offensive coordinator Mike DeBord said. “He is really hard. When you see him in the locker room after losses, you see what this game means to him and what Tennessee football means to him and the team means to him. I hurt for him when he does that.
“Nobody takes it harder than him. He’s continuing to work at that. He’s done a lot of great things for us. What he’s done for us this season and prior seasons has been unbelievable, and I’m glad Josh Dobbs is our quarterback.”
Dobbs is completing 57 percent of his passes (133-for-233) for 1,686 yards and 15 touchdowns, but the 11 interceptions he’s thrown in eight games this season match the total he threw in the 19 games he played the previous two seasons.
“I know he’s frustrated,” running back John Kelly said after the game. “I feel like Dobbs is a perfectionist, so he basically knows he made a mistake and he just wants to correct it. He’s a little angry about it, but he knows that we’ve got his back regardless of what’s the outcome.”
Dobbs sticks to his weekly routine – as he sat down for his interview Tuesday, an alarm rang on his phone meant to wake him up from a midday nap – and his approach during the week doesn’t change whether he just lit up Florida for 399 yards of offense and five total touchdowns or played as badly as he did against South Carolina.
“I watch the film of every game right after the game,” Dobbs said, “whether it’s the away game on the plane heading back to Knoxville or a home game coming to the complex before I go home to watch the game and check it out and see areas to improve, what we did well and how we can improve.
“There’s always a hunger to watch film. I watch it as soon as I can possibly get it, win or loss. The key is just identifying the mistakes, looking at them very objectively, removing the emotions of the game (and) seeing where can I improve and understanding that and improving moving forward.”
DeBord said he hasn’t seen any change in the “even-keeled” Dobbs this week and doesn’t believe his quarterback’s confidence has been shaken in himself or his supporting cast.
“I don’t think you can ever put it on one position,” DeBord said. “This offense, the quarterback’s stuff is very important, in the run game and the throw game, but I don’t know how many offenses nowadays in college football don’t say that or can’t say that. But there’s a lot of factors that go into that.
“If he’s running the ball well, that means we’re blocking well. If he’s throwing the ball well, that means the protection’s good and the routes are good and all those things. You can’t, I don’t believe, look at one guy and say he’s the reason. It’s not by no stretch. I’ve got to call better plays. We’ve got to execute better. Everybody’s got to get better.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.