Secondary
Daniel: The Vols held the Rebels nearly 100 yards under their passing average for the season and kept Laquon Treadwell under wraps, allowing the mega-talented receiver to catch just four passes for 43 yards. Vince Sanders was really the only WR to give Tennessee consistent trouble. He had two big grabs, including a 39-yard touchdown over freshman CB Emmanuel Moseley. Evan Engram’s 28-yard touchdown catch came when he was matched up against defensive end Corey Vereen, so hard to put that on the DBs too much. Justin Coleman had a nice deflection in the end zone on a play where Brian Randolph probably should’ve come away with the interception. It wasn’t their best effort of the season, but I thought they played well enough to give Tennessee a chance. Grade: B-
Houston: It was an up and down night for this group. The Vols appeared to sub in Emmanuel Moseley for Mike Williams early in the game to help defend some of Ole Miss’ speed at receiver – namely Vince Sanders – after Williams got beat inside and gave up a big completion on a slant route. Ole Miss recognized the move and immediately started to pick on Moseley, a true freshman, resulting in two long completions to Sanders in the first and second quarters that flipped the field in Ole Miss’ favor and gave a struggling Bo Wallace some confidence. Cam Sutton did a fantastic job against All-American receiver Laquon Treadwell and Tennessee’s defensive scheme to double Treadwell from multiple angles resulted in a four catch, 43-yard performance – one of his worst of the season. The Vols didn’t force a turnover in this one, but did force Bo Wallace into his lowest completion percentage of the season (46.4) and held him to under 200 yard passing for only the second time this year. Given the opponent, they played almost as well as you could have asked for. Grade: B
Average Grade: B
*Editor’s note: Reed’s grades will return next week. We’ll round up when applicable for the average since there are only two of us this week.
