UT Vols football bye-week reflections: 3 positives, 3 negatives and a fallacy

As Tennessee’s bye week ends, here’s a look back on the good, the bad and a fallacy from the first five games.

THREE POSITIVES

The Vols are mostly healthy

Tennessee lost center Brandon Kennedy, who started the season opener, after one game to an ACL injury. Riley Locklear, a top reserve offensive lineman, will miss a couple weeks after having knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus sustained in last week’s game against Georgia.

Otherwise, the Vols have remained fairly healthy. That’s welcome news after injury-plagued 2016 and ’17 seasons.

Jarrett Guarantano improved

Guarantano isn’t lighting the world on fire. His quarterback rating is middle of the pack in the SEC. He’s a non-factor in the running game.

But he’s better as a sophomore than he was as a freshman. Other than Tennessee’s game against Florida, Guarantano has been serviceable. He’s connected on several downfield passes. He’s got a decent completion rate of 63.4 percent.

He’s got a long way to go to becoming a top-end quarterback, though.

“Jarrett knows that he needs to improve in a lot of areas,” coach Jeremy Pruitt said in an interview with UT radio voice Bob Kesling that aired Wednesday on the “Vol Calls” radio show.

“His footwork needs to get better. He needs to have a better grasp of our offense — in the run game, in protections. He needs to improve recognizing coverages so he knows where to go with the football.”

The defense is getting better — slowly

West Virginia ravaged Tennessee’s defense in a 40-14 victory in the season opener. The Mountaineers averaged 8.97 yards per play. That’s the highest single-game rate UT has allowed since Oregon averaged 9.04 yards in a 59-14 victory over the Vols in 2013.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is the defense has made strides since then. The unit was good enough to keep the Vols in shouting distance of Georgia until late in the fourth quarter.

Some help from the offense wouldn’t hurt. Georgia possessed the ball for 62.4 percent of last week’s game.

THREE NEGATIVES

The offensive line isn’t good

Tennessee’s offensive line was so bad last season, the general logic entering this year was: It can’t be worse, right?

Well, it might be.

Trey Smith, a second-team All-SEC selection last year, regressed. He doesn’t seem to have taken to left tackle after playing mostly guard last season. And there are no standouts elsewhere on the line.

The blocking from the tight ends and backfield has been flawed, too.

The Vols rank 12th in the SEC in yards per carry after placing last in that stat last season.

Too many miscues

Too often, Tennessee can’t get out of its own way. The Vols had six turnovers in a 47-21 loss to Florida. They had three illegal formation penalties on punts against Georgia.

Those type of errors — in that quantity — are inexcusable.

Pruitt often says his team has a slim margin for error. That’s coachspeak for: My team isn’t that talented.

When you take a team with talent deficiencies and pile on errors, it’s a bad combination.

“We’ve got a long ways to go to keep us from messing it up and make the other team beat us,” Pruitt said on “Vol Calls.”

No unit is dominant

Tennessee’s offense has failed to produce more than 21 points in any of its three games against a Power 5 opponent, and the 24 points the Vols scored against UTEP are the fewest the winless Miners have allowed this season.

The defense is perhaps a step ahead of the offense but not good enough to dominate a decent opponent.

Vols punter Joe Doyle and kicker Brent Cimaglia are having fine seasons, but the special teams are producing very little in the way of returns.

To win several football games, a team needs to be above average in at least one facet of the game. Tennessee isn’t.

ONE FALLACY

You have to get worse before you get better

This seems to be a mantra for some Vols supporters looking to put a positive spin on Tennessee’s rocky start.

It’s codswallop.

In fact, it was hard to imagine UT having a worse record after setting the school record for losses with a 4-8 mark in 2017. The goal should still be to show progress from last season.