The fact Tennessee scored three second-half points and still beat a ranked team on the road is sitting quite well this week with Volunteers defenders.
“We play defense here, too,” Vols sixth-year senior linebacker Solon Page III said Tuesday in a news conference. “You’ve got to play defense to win a game.”
The Vols were far from dominant defensively in Saturday’s 34-27 overtime win at Pittsburgh, allowing 415 yards, but 153 of those came in their less-than-stout first quarter. Tennessee eventually got to Panthers quarterback Kedon Slovis late in the second quarter, with a Tyler Baron tackle knocking him out of the contest, and the Vols were able to limit the damage defensively in the second half, when Tennessee’s offense fumbled twice and Paxton Brooks had a punt blocked.
In the overtime period, the Panthers ran eight plays that netted five yards, which gave Vols head coach Josh Heupel all the more reason to shower praise on the defense.
“We feel like we’ve got a job to do, and that’s to go out there and stop them every chance we step on the field,” Vols second-year defensive coordinator Tim Banks said Tuesday. “We have one of the most prolific offenses in the country, and we know that, and we obviously have a lot of pride in what we do on defense as well.
“Any time we have a chance to have a positive impact on the game, that’s what we’re trying to do, and we were obviously fortunate enough to have a positive impact this past Saturday.”
Tennessee was an abysmal 99th last season in total defense (allowing 421.7 yards per game) and 101st in third-down defense (yielding a 42.13% success rate). Through two games this year, which includes the 59-10 mismatch with inferior Ball State, the Vols are 77th (379.0) and tied for 33rd (28.13%), respectively.
The Vols have a chance to enhance those numbers Saturday night against Akron, which ranks 117th nationally in total offense (304.5) and was held to 225 yards in last week’s 52-0 loss at Michigan State.
“Every game is a new game, and every offense has a different approach,” Banks said. “The ball came out extremely quick against our first opponent, and these guys last week wanted to push the ball downfield a little more, so they held it. Our philosophy isn’t going to change. We’re always going to try to apply pressure at every point we can.
“How we do that is subject to the game-planning, but at the end of the day, we want to apply pressure every chance we get based on schematics of what they’re trying to do. We just want to be consistent in everything that we do. We don’t want to be a team that’s high one week and low the next week.”
Cornerback update
In Tennessee’s opener, the Vols started Warren Burrell and Christian Charles at cornerback, with Kamal Hadden and Brandon Turnage seeing their share of action as well.
At Pittsburgh, the starts went to Burrell and Hadden, who relegated Charles and Turnage to mostly viewing from the sideline.
“It wasn’t necessarily the goal not to play those guys,” Banks said. “We felt like the corners who were in were doing a pretty good job. In hindsight, you would have liked to have gotten Charles in for a couple more snaps, but the reality is that all those guys get what they deserve.
“Turnage is working extremely hard, but so are Kamal and Burrell. The thing we talk about a lot is just being ready when your name is called, and I know those guys will be ready when the opportunity presents itself.”
‘Beyond disappointing’
Tennessee has developed a two-game trend that offensive coordinator Alex Golesh would like to see halted immediately.
“We’ve put the ball on the ground in short yardage two weeks in a row,” Golesh said Tuesday. “That’s beyond disappointing and really in a lot of ways unacceptable.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.