In last Thursday night’s 38-6 dismantling of Bowling Green inside Neyland Stadium, the Tennessee defense allowed two lengthy field goals and just two snaps inside its red zone.
Who knows how the Volunteers would have performed had they brought their “A” game?
“We can do better than what we showed,” senior cornerback Alontae Taylor said this week in a news conference. “I would probably give ourselves a C-minus. We left a lot of plays out there on the field in the secondary, and I feel like we could have tackled a little better.
“We did a good job of stopping the run game, but whenever they went to the passing game, I feel like we could have done better.”
In a college football era when wide-open, pass-happy attacks are becoming more and more prevalent, the timeworn objective of establishing the run and stopping the run is still quite desired. The inferior Falcons of the Mid-American Conference did top the Vols through the air by a 187-144 yardage margin, but that hardly combated the 331-32 advantage Tennessee enjoyed on the ground.