Former Alabama QB make statement about Tennessee that all Vols fans should hear
If you take a look around social media, you might think the Tennessee Vols are 1-5 instead of 5-1. Tennessee's passing attack has been mediocre at best this season, just a year after dominating the sport on a near weekly basis with a passing attack that looked unstoppable at times. There are a variety of […]
If you take a look around social media, you might think the Tennessee Vols are 1-5 instead of 5-1.
Tennessee's passing attack has been mediocre at best this season, just a year after dominating the sport on a near weekly basis with a passing attack that looked unstoppable at times.
There are a variety of reasons for the Vols' struggles in the passing game. The quarterback play hasn't been elite, wide receivers have struggled, and Tennessee's most important offensive lineman, Cooper Mays, missed the first four games of the season.
But despite the struggles, Tennessee is 5-1 at the midpoint of the season (thanks to an elite rushing attack and the best defense we've seen in Knoxville since the 1990s).
You'd think that 100 percent of the Tennessee fan base would be thrilled with a 5-1 start (which has been rare for the Vols over the last 15 years). But there's a shocking amount of complaining happening on the internet (not all Vols fans, but enough that their voices are loud).
Former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy, a neutral observer of Tennessee athletics, made some comments this week that the Nega-Vols should probably hear.
"I feel like last year, the game had to go a certain way for them (Tennessee) to win," said McElroy during Always College Football this week. "This year they can find different pathways to victories…last year, Tennessee had to go one direction to victory. They had one pathway to victory against top tier competition. Now I think they can go a bunch of different ways. The roadmap for Tennessee moving forward is going to be interesting. If they can get that passing attack going, this team could be really dangerous. Really, really dangerous down the stretch."
McElroy is spot on. The Vols proved against Texas A&M that they can win when the offense sputters and doesn't put points on the board. That wasn't true a year ago. And that should excite fans. The offensive performance against Texas A&M is probably as bad as it's going to get under Josh Heupel (and remember, the Aggies have a really good defense, so that contributed…it wasn't just Tennessee shooting themselves in the foot).
A couple of weeks ago, the Vols scored 41 points (34 offensive points) against a South Carolina team that dominated Tennessee in 2022. Vols quarterback Joe Milton wasn't perfect in that game, but he outplayed South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler.
The story of the 2023 Volunteers is still being written. The switch could flip for this team at any moment (Heupel said on Monday that he doesn't think they're as far away as it's looked at times). And if that switch does flip, then the Vols have the defense this time around (and the depth) to make a run in the second half of the season. The SEC hasn't looked dominant. And Georgia, while they're still elite, isn't the same Georgia team that we saw last season (and they're going to be without their best player for a little while).
Everything is still there for Tennessee. And like McElroy said, this Vols team has the potential to be surpassingly dangerous down the stretch.
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