Tennessee sixth-year senior quarterback Joe Milton III had seven games last season in which he completed a pass for 50 or more yards.
His longest aerial gain in Saturday’s 20-13 topping of Texas A&M was a 17-yarder to Squirrel White in the third quarter.
The No. 17 Volunteers are thriving in the running game, defensively and on special teams entering Saturday afternoon’s showdown at No. 11 Alabama (3:30 on CBS), but they are not producing their usual big passing plays.
“We’ve had guys open and we haven’t hit them,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said Monday during his weekly news conference. “The communication has been off at times. We’ve just got to be a little bit better. It wasn’t pretty on Saturday, and I’ll be the first to admit that, but it’s not that far off, either.
“We’ve got to do ordinary things at a really high level.”