Overall
Daniel: I thought it would be pretty bad for the Vols. I picked Ole Miss by 17, so my expectations, due to the talent and experience gap, the matchups and the location of the game, weren’t very high. Still, I thought the Vols underachieved even my tempered expectations, especially on offense. The Vols likely would’ve lost if they played well, but they took away any chance they had with self-inflicted wounds. Their best chance was to take care of the football, play good defense, get it into the fourth quarter and try to win a tight, low-scoring game. They did much of that equation into the third quarter, though they couldn’t finish the deal. The defense played well enough to give the team a chance. Ultimately, take away the garbage-time touchdown and the two TDs on the short field and the defense gave up just 13 points straight up. The offense is just a wreck. There’s no way around it. The good news for the Vols? It’s not that this game didn’t matter, but that this team will ultimately judged by what it does in November – where the Vols still have a chance to make the postseason. The defense will need to continue to play at a high level and the offense must takes steps. It didn’t on Saturday, but there’s still time for this team. Grade: D+
Houston: It was an ugly game, no question, but this was an outstanding Ole Miss team that Tennessee played. If not for four turnovers, Tennessee would have likely had an opportunity to be in this one in the fourth quarter based on the defensive game plan, but when you can’t protect the football you can’t expect to be in games like this with an opportunity to win. Even in the loss I thought that there were some bright spots for Tennessee, as Jalen Hurd, Josh Malone, Derek Barnett, Cam Sutton and Corey Vereen all made some very nice plays in this game that should give Tennessee fans something to look forward to over the final five games of the season. The bottom line is that Tennessee would have had to have played a perfect game in this one – with some help from Ole Miss – if they were ever going to have a shot. It didn’t happen that way and the result was what you saw last night. I would caution people not to give up on this team. There is a lot of football left to be played and there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the Vols’ chances of playing a game in late December or January…Ole Miss is just on another level right now. Grade: C-
Average Grade: C-
