Offensive Line
Daniel: It was a vintage offensive line performance, and that’s not a good thing for the Vols. Playing without starting center Mack Crowder, Missouri confused the Vols several times and downright overpowered them regularly. It’s not that this offensive line got that much better over the last couple weeks, it was more that Dobbs did a great job masking some deficiencies. There just wasn’t much Dobbs could do in several situations with Mizzou’s talented defensive line bearing down on him. The Vols found occasional room in the run game, but not much consistency – finishing with just 53 yards officially, though sack totals ate into the true amount. Grade: D
Houston: This looked like the early-October Vol offensive line against Missouri. Dylan Wiesman started in place of the injured Mack Crowder and in-game injuries to Jacob Gilliam and Marcus Jackson looked to have impacted this group’s performance. Butch Jones said that Missouri’s defensive line may have been the best the Vols have faced all season, and after watching them in person, I am inclined to agree. Shane Ray and Markus Golden kept Dobbs in the pocket and their defensive tackles got great push all night long. Missouri ran a lot of twists and stunts with four down linemen and consistently generated pressure on Josh Dobbs. Six sacks given up and a 1.8 yards-per-carry average aren’t good enough in this conference. Grade: D
Reed: It was an awful night for this unit. They were confused by stunts and delayed blitzes and gave up an inexcusable six sacks – and that was with Dobbs escaping several Missouri defenders on multiple occasions. The Tigers lived in Tennessee’s backfield and the Vol rushing attack never really got going. Just a little better offensive line play and this game could have been drastically different. Grade: F
Average Grade: D
