Outside of the play of the offensive line, the big talking point coming out of Tennessee’s 20-17 loss to Texas is the Vols’ offensive play-calling.

Vols head coach Josh Heupel went with a conservative game plan that didn’t involve much misdirection or deception.

Now, there were plays to be made that just weren’t made. And if just a few of those plays had been made, the Vols probably win the game.

Still, it was a conservative game plan that didn’t necessarily put true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon in the best possible position for success.

Former Tennessee assistant coach shares thoughts on the Vols’ offense against Texas

Former Tennessee assistant coach Doug Matthews shared some thoughts on the Vols’ offensive performance during his Sunday show on 104.5 The Zone.

Matthews felt like the Vols’ coaching staff didn’t do enough to help out Brandon and right tackle Jesse Perry.

(Note: To be clear, Matthews wasn’t throwing shade at Tennessee’s coaching staff, he was simply offering some analysis of what went wrong for the Volunteers. No coaching staff has a perfect game, and there’s more that goes into a loss than just play-calling.)

“[Brandon’s] upside is tremendous,” said Matthews. “I’ve watched him practice a lot, but the way he played in yesterday’s game, he didn’t have a great game. Obviously, a lot of that had to do with Texas’s defense, and this will probably, in all likelihood, be the best defense that Tennessee plays this year. But as you look at yesterday’s game from the offensive side of the football, the two areas (of concern) were quarterback and right tackle.

“I want to make this perfectly clear: I am talking about this one game, and I’m looking at it from a Tennessee fan’s perspective, and I’m also looking at it from a perspective of someone who’s coached up there and has had ball games like that. But quite frankly, the quarterback and the right tackle needed help yesterday from the coaching staff, and they weren’t able to get it. Our quarterback, in particular, needed to get a good bit of help yesterday. I did not think that he got it from the offensive staff. He didn’t get it from his head coach. He didn’t get it from his offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach. Ditto for the right tackle. We have a young man playing there who is playing out of position. And that position, the right tackle, gave up at least five of the 10 sacks yesterday.”

“There’s several things you probably could have done to help in pass protection,” continued Matthews. “… [The right tackle] had to have help yesterday. He’s playing out of position. Quite frankly, Tennessee thought (Jesse) Perry should be a guard inside. He’s an excellent guard. He’s not a tackle, but he’s having to play out there. That position was supposed to be filled by a transfer player, No. 77 Ory Williams. And for whatever reason, it did not happen. But what you cannot do as a coach — and again, I’ve made a bunch of these mistakes myself and I’m just analyzing it — you can’t ask players to do things that they can’t do. And yesterday, we asked a quarterback to do some things that he’s not in position to do just yet, and we asked a right tackle to do some things without any help that he can’t do.

“There’s not a lot of options at that right tackle position. So what Tennessee has to do, what this offensive coordinator has to do, and the head coach has to do, and offensive line coach has to do, they have to figure out how to help him. Just a couple of things on the quarterback. 45-plus pass calls are too many against this quality of defense. He was hit 23 times yesterday. That’s 30 percent of the [75] plays that he played. That is a huge number of hits against a very physical defense.”

Matthews went on to suggest that Tennessee needs to get back to running the ball next week against Auburn.

I’ve never been an offensive play-caller, so I don’t want to speak out of turn too much. But I think Matthews makes some good points. Again, if the Vols execute better against Texas, they probably win the game. There were plays to be made. But Tennessee’s coaching staff also could’ve put the offense in a better position to succeed. I was surprised, for example, to see very few runs to the outside — that’s something Texas struggled with against UTSA last week. I also thought Tennessee could’ve done a better job of rolling Brandon out and giving him a chance to make some plays with his legs (or throws while on the move).

One thing that’s important to remember, though, is that this was the coaching staff’s first SEC game with Brandon under center. The film from this game will be valuable coaching resource for everyone in the building. Let’s see how the team — coaching staff, quarterback, offensive line, etc — responds next week against Auburn before we fire off too many hot takes about the play-calling.