A quarter of the way through the season, Tennessee football doesn’t have the dominant defense that carried last season’s Vols to a 10-3 (6-2 SEC) record and a birth in the College Football Playoff.
The Vols have given up 24-plus points in three of their first four games including 38 points in regulation in their overtime loss against Georgia. That’s already more games allowing 24-plus points than Tennessee notched all of last season. There’s multiple things to point to in Tennessee’s defensive struggles early this season.
Most notably, Tennessee is injured on the defensive side of the ball. Top corners Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson have played a combined 19 snaps this season. Make it three combined snaps for defensive tackles Jaxson Moi and Daevin Hobbs— a duo that would likely combine for 75-plus snaps a game in SEC play.
But injuries are a part of football and Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel is not excusing the lackluster defense because of the early season adversity partly causing it.
“Sure. Yeah,” Heupel said on if the injuries are affecting his defense’s performance. “You’re missing some corners. You’re missing interior guys. Yeah. Does anybody care though? At the end of the day, you either win or you a lose. There’s no asterisk next to it. They don’t say, ‘yeah, but.’ You gotta go win.”
There’s two bits of good news and one bit of bad news about Tennessee’s defensive situation. They should be getting healthier soon. Moi is trending towards a return to the field with Saturday’s SEC matchup at Mississippi State a real possibility.
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Hobbs seems less likely than Moi to return for Mississippi State but it’s also not impossible. The junior has been off the crutches for over a week now as he works back from the foot injury he suffered in fall practice. If he’s unable to return against the Bulldogs, he’ll have two weeks to rest up around the open date before Tennessee hosts Arkansas.
Arkansas seems like a best case scenario return date for McCoy but his status seems the most uncertain as he works back from a torn ACL. But no injured Vol could change Tennessee’s fortunes by returning like McCoy. If he’s not battling rust and performs like the All-SEC corner he was a season ago, Tennessee will have a formidable cornerback combo between McCoy and Colton Hood.
Gibson’s injury status is the most negative. He was wearing a sling during Saturday’s win over UAB and a return to the field doesn’t seem like it’s coming anytime soon.
Continuing on with the negativity, getting healthier isn’t going to mask all of Tennessee’s defensive issues. This group is unlikely to be as good as it was a season ago and while the Vols are going to get players back from injury they will probably lose some to injury along the way too.
The final piece of good news? Tennessee doens’t need its defense to be as good as it was a season ago to get back to the playoffs. Before the season, it looked that way. But Tennessee’s offense looks vastly improved over the first month of the season.
Tennessee likely won’t go scoreless for three straight first halves. They look like a group that can score 30 points every time they step on the field. That alleviates pressure off Tim Banks’ defense and allows them to strive for improvement, not perfection.
