KNOXVILLE — Tennessee’s defense has played to mixed reviews this season, and Saturday’s 56-24 trampling of the University of Alabama at Birmingham offered more of the same.
The Blazers racked up a healthy 394 yards in addition to their 24 points, but 243 of those yards and 17 of those points transpired after halftime, when the No. 15 Volunteers had raced to a 42-7 lead and had begun to empty the benches.
Tennessee entered the UAB game seeking to rebound defensively from last weekend’s 44-41 overtime loss to Georgia, so was that the case?
“Every week is a new week,” Vols fifth-year coach Josh Heupel said. “The challenge for our team and not just defensively is to take a step, and I think there are things that we liked about what we did and some things that we need to clean up, too. Early in the football game, everything they were throwing at us we were pretty solid for a majority of it.”
Tennessee did have an impressive first quarter defensively, as the Blazers managed 44 yards that were essentially erased by their 48 penalty yards. The Vols also held UAB to 23 rushing yards for the game, the lowest rushing total by an opponent in the Heupel era.