Back in the summer, a common thought was that Tennessee might just be decent offensively, but they were probably going to be atrocious defensively. After all, they did watch Henry To’o To’o, Quarvaris Crouch, Bryce Thompson, Key Lawrence and several others leave the team.
A thin defense paired with an offense that wants to run three plays a minute? I’ll be honest, I was having some Sal Sunseri visions before the season. But that hasn’t happened. Actually, it’s been the opposite. The Tennessee defense has actually improved from 2020 to 2021, jumping up from 70th to 58th. On the surface, that’s not a huge gain, but simply holding serve in year one with this roster would have been impressive.