Defense
Tennessee continues to struggle to get pressure on the quarterback, only sacking ETSU quarterback Logan Marchi once. On the afternoon, the front-seven generated 12 pressures. Emmit Gooden led the group with three pressures on his way to eight tackles, three tackles for a loss, and a sack. Deandre Johnson contributed two hurries.
Generating 12 pressures against an FCS team is unacceptable. For a second consecutive week, Tennessee’s edge rushers and ends didn’t impact the game. With two weeks to practice before opening conference plays, the Vols have to find a way to generate pressure. On 29 of East Tennessee State’s drop backs, Tennessee’s didn’t put pressure on the quarterback 13 times.
The area of the defense that did see improvement was its secondary play. SEC freshman of the week Bryce Thompson led the way with an interception, a pass breakup, two tackles for a loss, and four tackles. A week after being torched by Will Grier, Tennessee’s secondary had “good” coverage 19 times compared to eight “poor” coverages. Kyle Phillips did a phenomenal job of getting his hand up and deflecting three passes.
Pruitt didn’t show much with his blitzes, bringing four-or-five man rushes 92 percent of the time.
Three-man pass-rush: 3
Four-man pass-rush: 36
Five-man pass-rush: 18
Six-man pass-rush: 2
Brought a defensive back: 10 times
Another area the defense improved was tackling. Against West Virginia, Tennessee missed 13 tackles. Against East Tennessee State, the Vols missed just three tackles. Shawn Shamburger, Baylen Buchannan, and Thompson each missed one tackle apiece.
With the secondary holding ETSU to 69 receiving yards, the front-seven held the Bucs to 125 rushing yards as they averaged 4.3 yards per carry. Tennessee held the Bucs to 10 positive runs and stopped the run 19 times. The Vols held ETSU in check for the majority of the game, but a pair of long runs from ETSU with the game out of hand inflated its rushing stats.
