National media outlet wrongly slams Tennessee Vols position group
Saturday Down South's Ethan Stone slammed the Tennessee Vols' defensive line this week for their performance against Ball State. Stone wrote in an article that was published on Monday that Tennessee's defensive line "failed" its first test of the season. From SDS: Tennessee’s defensive line failed its first test of the season. Ball State quarterback […]
Saturday Down South's Ethan Stone slammed the Tennessee Vols' defensive line this week for their performance against Ball State.
Stone wrote in an article that was published on Monday that Tennessee's defensive line "failed" its first test of the season.
Tennessee’s defensive line failed its first test of the season.
Ball State quarterback John Paddock threw 43 times in the Vols’ 59-10 win Thursday night. Most of those attempts were entirely without pressure. I get it, it’s hard to nitpick a 49-point clobbering, but Paddock could have made a sandwich before pulling the trigger several times in his first collegiate start – and that’s concerning. A better quarterback (Kedon Slovis, for example) with better and more plentiful weapons would have done a lot of damage.
I'm guessing Stone didn't watch the game and instead just looked at the box score and saw that Tennessee had zero sacks.
As best I can tell, Stone didn't write a similar article about Alabama after the Crimson Tide totaled zero sacks against Utah State in their 55-0 win.
There are a couple of things that Stone doesn't understand about the Ball State game.
For starters, the Vols were quite vanilla on defense. They didn't show any exotic blitzes and they rarely brought more than one defender on a blitz (and when they did, it appeared that a defensive end would drop into coverage).
There's also the fact that Ball State was trying to get the ball out as quickly as possible — to prevent Tennessee from living in the backfield.
What we saw a lot was Ball State's offensive linemen essentially diving at Tennessee's defensive line to buy the quarterback a second or two to make a throw.
The Vols' secondary was playing extremely soft coverage, which left the intermediate routes open for the Cardinals. Tennessee was willing to give up small chunks of yards because they were confident they could stop Ball State on third down. And for the most part, they did.
The one example that Stone used — when the Vols gave up a third-and-four while rushing six (he incorrectly says there were eight men rushing) — was an example of Ball State getting the ball out quickly and Tennessee playing off the receivers. If the Vols were playing tight coverage in that situation, it would've been a sack as the Ball State quarterback got rid of the ball just as pressure arrived in his face.
Tennessee likely didn't want to give Pittsburgh too much to look at on film. And they knew they didn't have to empty the toolbox to beat Ball State. It was a smart approach by the Vols' entire staff.
Don't let folks like Ethan Stone lead you to believe that Tennessee's defensive line is a problem. It's not. The Vols did exactly what they wanted to do against Ball State. And I have a strong feeling that we'll see a much different-looking defensive line (in terms of performance) against Pittsburgh.
Featured image via USA TODAY Sports
