Tennessee’s three football games this season against power conference opponents have yielded 51 points in a rout of North Carolina State, 25 in a topping of Oklahoma and 14 in last Saturday night’s loss at Arkansas.
It’s up to the Volunteers to reverse that slowing trend, beginning with this weekend’s game against visiting Florida.
Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman admitted after the 19-14 upset that his defensive preparation began by studying Tennessee’s triumph over the Sooners. Pittman’s Hogs employed a 3-2-6 alignment that prevented the Vols from getting behind the Arkansas secondary and producing significant pass plays.
“Structurally, the last couple of opponents have shown different things against us,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said Monday in his weekly news conference. “We were certainly capable last week of attacking it and performing better than we did in the run game and in the pass game. Not to take anything away from Arkansas, but some of the things that we can control we did not handle very well.
“Communication was a big part of it, and so were the penalties. Those can change the way the game is played. We had too many third-and-longs, so we’ve just got to be ready to attack what we see on game day.”