KNOXVILLE — Mike DeBord knows it is going to continue.
As Tennessee’s offense continues to navigate through the season, its coordinator knows more teams are going to try the same formula Oklahoma used to stymie the Volunteers in the second half of last Saturday’s double-overtime loss.
And DeBord hopes his offense will be more prepared and better suited to avoid a repeat of its collapse.
“There’s no doubt what happened,” DeBord said after Tuesday’s practice. “They’d given up 17 points in the first half, and they had blitzed us some, but not very much. In the second half it was a blitzfest. It turned into that. They knew that they had to do that – they couldn’t give up more points. That’s what the game turned into.”
Vols glance
* Tennessee (1-1) vs. Western Carolina (1-1) * Neyland Stadium * Saturday, 7 p.m. * ESPNU and 106.5 FM
Tennessee receiver Johnathon Johnson is knocked out of bounds by Oklahoma’s Ahmad Thomas (13) during the Sooners’ double-overtime win Saturday night.Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops called for continual blitzes, many of them from defensive backs or off the edge, to rattle quarterback Josh Dobbs and overwhelm Tennessee’s offensive line.
The Sooners’ pressure and mistakes on Tennessee’s part were the biggest reason the Vols managed just 66 yards – 51 of which came on the first two plays – and five first downs in the second half.
“They started changing things up defensively, which was expected,” Dobbs said Monday. “They started bringing a lot more pressure from various areas and just doing a good job of switching it up and not being predictable. We were seeing the pressures but not always picking it up consistently. That’s something we have to do better moving forward.”
DeBord said Tennessee attempted to make adjustments to counter Oklahoma’s pressure, but the Vols couldn’t find their way out of their funk on offense.
“You’re trying to adjust, like we adjusted in the first game,” he said. “We were trying to adjust and we were making adjustments and things like that. You’re trying to take advantage of what they’re doing.
“That defense blitzed everywhere. They blitzed the corner from the boundary, they blitzed the strong safety from the field, they blitzed the Mike and the Sam (linebackers), they blitzed the Sam and the Will (linebackers).
“It was everything at us, and they kept us off balance, to their credit.”
With Oklahoma committing more guys to pressuring Dobbs and slowing running back Jalen Hurd, Tennessee was unable to make plays in the passing game.
The Vols managed just 13 completions on 31 passes and had just 125 yards passing with the two longest completions going for 19 and 20 yards.
Too many third-and-long situations didn’t help the cause.
Tennessee averaged nearly 9 yards to go on its 18 third downs, and DeBord said his offense wound up in seven third downs of 11 yards or longer, which is a low-percentage situation for any offense.
“When they’re blitzing and coming at you, it’s hard to put the ball down the field, because everyone’s in a one-on-one situation up front,” DeBord said. “That’s one thing that we’re working on. We’re working on the blitz, but also we’re working on getting quicker throws.”
In the first half, Tennessee averaged 5 yards on 18 first-down snaps (13 runs, five passes). In the second half, though, the Vols managed only 37 yards on 11 first-down plays (eight runs, three passes), and those numbers include Hurd’s 31-yard run and Josh Smith’s 20-yard catch.
Tennessee had a false-start penalty on first-and-10 and had three lost-yardage first-down plays in the second half.
“Obviously we can compete with great teams. You saw it Saturday,” Smith said. “We’ve just got to push through and take the lead. We’ve got to finish plays, and we can’t mess up on the little things that we were messing up on. It’s just the little things that we’ve got to execute.
“It’s hard, because we were doing so well. And in the second half, it was kind of frustrating, because I felt like we were calling the right plays and some guys just weren’t doing their jobs. We’ve just got to execute on that. It’s the little things that we’re so close, and we’re going to get it.”
With the SEC schedule on deck after this week’s breather against Western Carolina, DeBord and Tennessee know more teams are going to bring more blitzes to throw off the offense.
“When a team blitzes, you have to take advantage of it,” DeBord said. “And we didn’t take advantage of it like we should have. We’re working real hard this week versus that, and we’re going to take advantage of it when that happens again. That’s something that we’ve been practicing against, but we’ve got to obviously get better.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.