Going into the season, one of the biggest question marks surrounding Tennessee was whether the defense could consistently pressure opposing quarterbacks.

Vols defensive coordinator Jim Knowles admitted in August that he wasn’t sure how effective Tennessee’s pass rush would be this fall.

“Time will tell with the pass rush,” said Knowles. “Because you’re never hitting the quarterback — or trying not to get close to the quarterback — when you’re in spring or fall camp, a lot of these things with the pass rush you don’t see until you get to a game.

“It’s a question mark, and time will tell how that goes. But we need to have other tools in the toolbox to create pass rush if need be, and we’ll have that.”

There were plenty of folks in the national media who were skeptical about Tennessee’s defense because of the questions about the defensive line (though it’s fair to point out that VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs and Austin Price said during the summer that they were hearing good things about the defensive line).

It turns out that Tennessee’s defensive line is one of the team’s biggest strengths. The pass rush isn’t just good enough, it has a real chance to be the best in program history.

Hubbs, in fact, thinks the Vols could set a program record for sacks this season.

Tennessee currently has 35 sacks. The school record is 50 (set in 2000).

“My hot take for the rest of the year is I’m going to say Tennessee sets the school record for sacks,” said Hubbs on The Mike Keith Show this week. “I think they’ll get 15 more. The way that they’re playing — if you would have told somebody in August that this team was going to even have 35 sacks, much less the chance at the school record, I’m not sure anybody would have believed that. But that group has been outstanding.”

Tennessee is averaging 4.4 sacks per game. They’re on pace to finish the regular season with 52.5 sacks.