It wasn’t pretty — it rarely is in the SEC — but the Tennessee Vols left Neyland Stadium with a win over the Arkansas Razorbacks on Saturday

Tennessee escaped with a hard fought 34-31 win over Arkansas. The Vols struggled to defend the run at times, but they made enough big plays on defense (five sacks, nine tackles for loss, and four forced fumbles) to overcome the 240 yards the Razorbacks gained on the ground.

The win for Tennessee was its first against Arkansas since 2007 (oddly enough, the Vols also scored 34 points in that game).

Josh Heupel keeps making an in-game decision that’s eventually going to cost the Vols a win

At one point in the second half, it looked like the Vols were on the verge of blowing out the Razorbacks.

Tennessee pushed its lead to 17 points early in the fourth quarter. Arkansas, however, cut the lead to three points late in the fourth quarter, which created some nervous tension in Neyland Stadium.

The only reason the Razorbacks were able to make the game close at the end was because Vols head coach Josh Heupel chose to punt the ball with just under five minutes remaining. At the time of that decision, Tennessee faced a fourth-and-three from the Arkansas 44-yard line. (it turned into a fourth-and-eight after the Vols intentionally took a delay of game penalty).

Watching the game live, I thought Tennessee should’ve gone for it (it appeared that a large portion of Vols fans on social media felt the same way). The Vols could’ve put the game away a bit easier had they picked up a first down in that situation.

The decision to punt only gained the Vols 24 yards of field position after the punt from Jackson Ross went into the end zone for a touchback (I’m not factoring the delay of game yardage into that…simply because that was part of the punt decision).

Arkansas then went down the field and scored a touchdown in less than two minutes. Fortunately for the Vols, the Tennessee offense was able to pick up some first downs and put the game away. It ultimately worked out (this time) for Heupel, but there’s no doubt there was some uneasiness in Neyland Stadium during the final few minutes of the game.

Tennessee has already lost one game this season — against the Georgia Bulldogs — because Heupel wasn’t aggressive in the fourth quarter (the field goal to go up 38-30 on Georgia instead of going for it in the fourth quarter to try to put the game away). When you have a chance to put a team away, you have to take it. I always think back to the prime New England Patriots with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in those moments. It didn’t always work out perfect for New England (though it worked out for the Patriots more than any other team in the NFL during that era), but they almost never gave the ball back to their opponent in those moments.

I like Heupel a lot. I think he’s a great coach, I think he’s about the right stuff, and I think he’s 100 percent the perfect guy to lead Tennessee’s program. But there’s always room for improvement.

Heupel loves to say that good teams get better as the season goes along. I think the same is true of good coaches. And I think this is an area where Heupel can get better.

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