London Vol
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GAME 2 – PITTSBURGH
17st SEP 2022
Last night was always going to be the calm before next week’s storm. However, it did turn out to be turbulent at times anyway, with Akron employing some dubious tactics and we may have luckily avoided significant injures to Cedric Tillman, Tyler Baron. Dylan Sampson and Jabari Small.
I am both pleased and relieved that we not only were efficient but also came out relatively unscathed from last night. So, now at 3-0 we can all salivate over next week’s matchup against Florida.
Note: there is a more extensive game review if you google A View from Big Ben Tennessee.
QUARTERBACKS
This continues to be one of the strongest departments of the team. Hendon Hooker’s stat line was a highly impressive 298 yards, 78% completion rate, 2 TDs and 0 INTs. What really amazes me, is that I don’t even think he has produced a complete game yet (saving it for next week, hopefully). For the second time this season, Joe Milton has come off the bench to display his unique talents (the two long touchdown passes were almost with only a flick of the wrist).
RUNNING BACKS
238 team yards on the ground is more than acceptable, with Jaylen Wright (96 yards) gaining the lion’s share, but at 4.2 yards a pop, this will not get it done in the SEC matches. For me the stand out Running Back was Dylan Sampson (57 yards at 7.1 yards per pop), he again flashed enough to now be in the conversation as to who is our best running back
WIDE RECEIVERS
They are not only talented but we are really deep at the Wide Receiver position, as demonstrated yesterday. 438 yards by the team and yet Cedric Tillman and Bru McCoy only contributed 25 of those. The star of the show was Jalin Hyatt with 166 yards. Last week he caught 11 catches but in a mainly “dink and dunk” capacity. Last night however, he showed how destructive he is with his speed where he can turn a ‘wheel route’ and a slant into huge gains or even touchdowns
TIGHT ENDS
Nice to see Jacob Warren and Princeton Fant snaring 3 passes for 40 yards. Fant was also instrumental in helping finish a 1-yard touchdown with a great block. Let’s hope it is the start of an upturn from these guys.
OFFENSIVE LINE
No real complaints here as they gave up only 1 sack and 0 QBH. There was also a number of running lanes created by the O Line as the Akron defense wore down. Gerald Mincey started slowly at Left Tackle though things seemed to calm down overall. He has been a very solid contributor at a position about which there were a lot of concern pre-season.
DEFENSIVE LINE
As in most weeks the Defensive Line can be departmentalised into two categories: Run Defense and Pass Defense. Yet again the Run Defense was excellent. Akron ran for only 35 yards at 1.5 yards per pop (Ball St 2.5 yards and Pittsburgh 3.6 yards). Regarding Pass Defence, early on in the game the Vols were only rushing 4 and this resulted in very little penetration. It has become obvious that to harass the opposing Quarterback we need to rush at least 5 or even an all-out blitz. When this happened later in the game, the Sacks and TFLs soon started to mount up. The individual players who I wish to highlight, will be mentioned in the section below marked ‘Freshmen’.
LINEBACKERS
It was nice to see Juwan Mitchell appear, although he seemed to have a quiet time. It felt like Jeremy Banks was aware that Aaron Beasley has been garnering most of the headlines this season, so he went and delivered a few trademark jarring hits to remind us who is the alpha dog here.
DEFENSIVE BACKS
There were too many completions early on for my liking, but again, I think the vanilla play calling allowed their more than useful Quarterback time to thread his way through our secondary. It is now becoming my weekly comment that Kamal Hadden is the No 1 Corner Back by some distance. If he keeps this up then the NFL Draft Analysts will start taking notice.
FRESHMEN
To me the most pleasing thing about last night’s match was the emergence of a number of Freshmen. Squirrel White snared a 47-yard pass, Dylan Sampson rushing 57 yards at 7.1 yards a pop, Justin Williams-Thomas 22 yards at 4.4 yards a pop, Elijah Herring 2 sacks, Tyre West 2 TFLs and 1 QBH, Joshua Josephs and James Pearce 1 TFL each. There is an awful lot of talent waiting in the wings and the 2022 signing class looks to have been a good one.
So, we have navigated ourselves through the first three weeks and now it’s time for Mars to come into conjunction with something and we beat Florida.
I always enjoy your comments and observations.
GO VOLS
17st SEP 2022
Last night was always going to be the calm before next week’s storm. However, it did turn out to be turbulent at times anyway, with Akron employing some dubious tactics and we may have luckily avoided significant injures to Cedric Tillman, Tyler Baron. Dylan Sampson and Jabari Small.
I am both pleased and relieved that we not only were efficient but also came out relatively unscathed from last night. So, now at 3-0 we can all salivate over next week’s matchup against Florida.
Note: there is a more extensive game review if you google A View from Big Ben Tennessee.
QUARTERBACKS
This continues to be one of the strongest departments of the team. Hendon Hooker’s stat line was a highly impressive 298 yards, 78% completion rate, 2 TDs and 0 INTs. What really amazes me, is that I don’t even think he has produced a complete game yet (saving it for next week, hopefully). For the second time this season, Joe Milton has come off the bench to display his unique talents (the two long touchdown passes were almost with only a flick of the wrist).
RUNNING BACKS
238 team yards on the ground is more than acceptable, with Jaylen Wright (96 yards) gaining the lion’s share, but at 4.2 yards a pop, this will not get it done in the SEC matches. For me the stand out Running Back was Dylan Sampson (57 yards at 7.1 yards per pop), he again flashed enough to now be in the conversation as to who is our best running back
WIDE RECEIVERS
They are not only talented but we are really deep at the Wide Receiver position, as demonstrated yesterday. 438 yards by the team and yet Cedric Tillman and Bru McCoy only contributed 25 of those. The star of the show was Jalin Hyatt with 166 yards. Last week he caught 11 catches but in a mainly “dink and dunk” capacity. Last night however, he showed how destructive he is with his speed where he can turn a ‘wheel route’ and a slant into huge gains or even touchdowns
TIGHT ENDS
Nice to see Jacob Warren and Princeton Fant snaring 3 passes for 40 yards. Fant was also instrumental in helping finish a 1-yard touchdown with a great block. Let’s hope it is the start of an upturn from these guys.
OFFENSIVE LINE
No real complaints here as they gave up only 1 sack and 0 QBH. There was also a number of running lanes created by the O Line as the Akron defense wore down. Gerald Mincey started slowly at Left Tackle though things seemed to calm down overall. He has been a very solid contributor at a position about which there were a lot of concern pre-season.
DEFENSIVE LINE
As in most weeks the Defensive Line can be departmentalised into two categories: Run Defense and Pass Defense. Yet again the Run Defense was excellent. Akron ran for only 35 yards at 1.5 yards per pop (Ball St 2.5 yards and Pittsburgh 3.6 yards). Regarding Pass Defence, early on in the game the Vols were only rushing 4 and this resulted in very little penetration. It has become obvious that to harass the opposing Quarterback we need to rush at least 5 or even an all-out blitz. When this happened later in the game, the Sacks and TFLs soon started to mount up. The individual players who I wish to highlight, will be mentioned in the section below marked ‘Freshmen’.
LINEBACKERS
It was nice to see Juwan Mitchell appear, although he seemed to have a quiet time. It felt like Jeremy Banks was aware that Aaron Beasley has been garnering most of the headlines this season, so he went and delivered a few trademark jarring hits to remind us who is the alpha dog here.
DEFENSIVE BACKS
There were too many completions early on for my liking, but again, I think the vanilla play calling allowed their more than useful Quarterback time to thread his way through our secondary. It is now becoming my weekly comment that Kamal Hadden is the No 1 Corner Back by some distance. If he keeps this up then the NFL Draft Analysts will start taking notice.
FRESHMEN
To me the most pleasing thing about last night’s match was the emergence of a number of Freshmen. Squirrel White snared a 47-yard pass, Dylan Sampson rushing 57 yards at 7.1 yards a pop, Justin Williams-Thomas 22 yards at 4.4 yards a pop, Elijah Herring 2 sacks, Tyre West 2 TFLs and 1 QBH, Joshua Josephs and James Pearce 1 TFL each. There is an awful lot of talent waiting in the wings and the 2022 signing class looks to have been a good one.
So, we have navigated ourselves through the first three weeks and now it’s time for Mars to come into conjunction with something and we beat Florida.
I always enjoy your comments and observations.
GO VOLS
