Tennessee football has battled a number of minor injuries during fall camp, but the injury bug took its most significant bite out of the Vols earlier this week when defensive tackle Daevin Hobbs suffered a foot injury that’s expected to sideline him early in the season.
Hobbs loss is a significant one for numerous reasons. First, the junior appeared poised for a breakout season. He’s battled injuries while earning playing time in each of his first two years in Knoxville. But the former five-star recruit had been fully healthy all of camp and had the potential to be Tennessee’s best interior defensive lineman.
The way this injury could stunt a potential breakout season for Hobbs is significant enough for Tennessee. The Vols are already being thin at defensive tackle makes the loss even worse.
Last season, Tennessee rotated six defensive tackles every game. Three of them— Hobbs, Bryson Eason and Jaxson Moi— are back and are clearly reliable. But even before Hobbs’ injury, there were clear questions about who was going to emerge as the fourth defensive tackle.
Defensive line coach Rodney Garner touched on the uncertainty earlier this month when meeting with the media.
“I still think we are a work in progress trying to identify who those guys are, who’s truly four, who’s five and possibly six,” Garner said. “We felt four was really coming on, four-A, four-B. Now we just got to keep moving the needle. It’s just, what, day six. So it’s a process. It’s a process.”
“There’s some good stuff put on film, some good things to teach off of. Areas that they see things they need to do to improve to try to move the needle in the right direction. So I’m encouraged about the attitude and the mindset that they’re bringing. But we got to continue to push that thing, push the right way.”
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Jamal Wallace is a former JUCO transfer who is a gifted athlete but is still learning the details of playing defensive tackle according to Garner. Nathan Robinson is a third year player who has played very few snaps, let alone meaningful ones, in his college career. Robinson is also one of the Vols that’s battled minor injuries during camp.
Junior college transfer Josh Schnell is another body in that room but he doesn’t physically look capable of playing defensive tackle in the SEC.
Blue-chip freshmen Ethan Utley and Isaiah Campbell do look physically ready to play in the SEC and Tennessee might need one, if not both, to emerge as legit contributors. But asking true freshmen to play significant snaps at defensive tackle in the SEC is an incredibly difficult ask.
“Just the level of competition, the strain that’s involved,” Garner said of making the jump from high school to college. “It’s just like we were talking yesterday, they can never become great and stay comfortable. So, they got to get themselves comfortable being uncomfortable right now so they can be comfortable later. So those are the things that I am trying to put into them, put them in difficult situations, so strain them so that good stuff can come out.”
Tennessee’s defensive line play was stout in 2024 in large part because of its depth and ability to rotate. That was especially true at defensive tackle. Omarr Norman-Lott was a second round pick but the Vols’ other top tackles were just solid players.
Both Eason and Moi are good players. Not great ones. Maybe Moi can take another step forward and be a true difference maker. But for Tennessee to be really good at defensive tackle again than they need unproven players to step up. That is all the more important with Hobbs sidelined for the time being.
