Josh Heupel didn’t need much time after Tennessee’s 20-17 loss to Texas to land on the obvious issue. The Vols got beaten up front, and the numbers told the story in ugly fashion.
Tennessee gave up 10 sacks Saturday afternoon in Knoxville, with Texas EDGE rusher Colin Simmons accounting for five of them. The pressure didn’t stop there. Even on snaps that didn’t end with the quarterback on the turf, the Longhorns were disrupting Tennessee’s rhythm in the run game and in the pocket.
The Vols could never get the ground game rolling. DeSean Bishop and Daune Morris combined for 67 yards on 20 carries, while quarterback Faizon Brandon added 23 rushes for two yards, sacks included. When the dust settled, Tennessee finished with just 70 rushing yards.
Texas also piled up 12 tackles for loss and six quarterback hurries, making it clear early that Tennessee was going to have a hard time finding any offensive flow. Heupel pointed straight at the line play when asked about what stood out.
“It’ll be a bunch of everything,” Heupel said on what he expects to see when rewatching the tape. “O-line has got to be better, can be better.
At times we were giving up pressure off of chip protection. We have to be able to execute that better.
There were times when the quarterback’s eyes, decision-making, not getting rid of it when there’s opportunities to get rid of it. Combining all that together and you have that personnel on the other side, you just can’t play that way.”
His opening comments after the game were just as direct. Heupel said Tennessee was not good enough up front, and he also made clear the offense as a whole has to improve. But the message about the front line came through loud and clear.
When asked why he thinks the offense can be better, Heupel kept the focus on accountability.
“Ultimately, we’ll decide what we’re going to be,” Heupel said. “We’ve got to fix what’s correctable, learn from it, grow from it.
It’s what you have to do every week, whether you win or lose. And everybody’s got to take ownership.
I’ve got to take ownership, staff, everybody, certainly the players, too. We’ve got to get better from it.”
Brandon also had his first real freshman growing pains, at times holding the ball too long and making the offensive line’s job even harder. It was part of the same issue Heupel described: too many things going wrong at once for Tennessee to survive against a defense that kept winning at the point of attack.
The Vols also took a hit when starting left guard Wendell Moe Jr. was injured early and did not return. Heupel had no update on his status after the game. The injury forced Tennessee to shuffle the line, with starting right guard Sham Umarov moving to left guard and Donovan Haslam handling the full game at right guard.
That rearrangement doesn’t explain away the performance, but it does belong in the picture. Tennessee has film to clean up and corrections to make before next Saturday afternoon’s home game against Auburn at Neyland Stadium.
The bigger concern now is simple: the Vols have to keep one loss from turning into two.
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