This time last week, the Tennessee Volunteers had one of the nation’s top five rushing defenses heading into their Southeastern Conference opener at Florida.
That’s no longer the case.
The Vols surrendered 283 rushing yards on 40 attempts during Saturday night’s 38-14 loss. Florida’s top tailback tandem of Malik Davis and Dameon Pierce combined on 18 carries for 107 yards, but most of the damage was produced by Gators quarterback Emory Jones, who rushed 15 times for 144 yards (9.6 per carry).
Jones was especially effective on broken plays in which Tennessee lost containment.
“Up until last week, I thought we were in the right spots,” Vols linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary said Tuesday in a news conference, “but last week brought a different type of challenge because of the quarterback probably being the best runner on the field. We felt like we had a good plan, but a lot of it was the tackling technique and guys in position to tackle him.