Tennessee football is less than three weeks away from opening its 2023 season against Virginia in Nashville. The Vols have high expectations entering Josh Heupel’s third season, coming in right outside the top 10 in the Preseason AP Poll.
Las Vegas sportsbooks have almost consensually set Tennessee football’s regular season over/under win total at 9 entering the season. But could the Vols’ underachieve in 2023 after overachieving a season ago?
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We took a look at three reasons why Tennessee could overachieve again Monday, but today let’s take a look at how why the Vols could underachieve.
Offensive Line Issues Tank Offensive Production
Tennessee’s offensive line was really good a season ago, but even then Hendon Hooker’s incredible pocket presence and elusiveness helped the Vols escape issues frequently.
But with Darnell Wright and Hooker off to the NFL, there’s reasons to be concerned about Tennessee’s offensive line entering the season.
Miami transfer John Campbell is poised to start at left tackle while Jeremiah Crawford is in the lead to start at right tackle. There’s real and legitimate concerns about how those two will hold up pass protecting for Joe Milton III. And Milton is a reason for concern too.
Milton’s pocket presence has been much worse than Hooker’s when he’s received opportunities. In the Orange Bowl, Clemson sacked Milton four times and Wright was playing in that game.
So, there’s questions about the tackle spots. Tennessee is much more solid along the interior of the offensive line but depth is a concern there. What if Preseason Third Team All-SEC selection Cooper Mays misses significant time? He’s already out for multiple weeks of fall camp and missed five games in 2021.
If the injury bug bites the interior of Tennessee’s offensive line than the Vols’ run game could suffer along with their pass protection.
Poor offensive line play would make it much more likely that Tennessee’s offense takes a major step back from last season’s insane production.
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Pass Defense Remains One Of The Nation’s Worst
127 of 131.
That’s where Tennessee’s pass defense ranked amongst the football bowl division last season. It’s not hard to envision the Vols’ pass defense being putrid in 2023 because it was putrid in 2022 and they’re poised to play a lot of the same players.
In the secondary, Andre Turrentine, BYU transfer Gabe Jeudy-Lally and maybe one of the three freshmen corners — Cristian Conyer, Rickey Gibson III and Jordan Matthews — could step up into a role after not playing last season. But it will mostly be the same faces in Tennessee’s defensive back room this season: Kamal Hadden, Jaylen McCollough, Warren Burrell, Doneiko Slaughter, Tamarion McDonald and Wesley Walker.
The same is the case at pass rusher. Byron Young, Tennessee’s top pass rusher from a season ago, is off to the NFL and Roman Harrison, Tyler Baron and Dominic Bailey are the lead guys at LEO and strong-side defensive end. Sophomore Josh Josephs is the lead contender of a group of talented underclassmen that could step into a larger role this season and provides optimism for the Vols’ pass rush.
But still, Tennessee’s pass rushers will be a lot of the same guys that struggled to get home with four rushers a season ago.
It’s realistic, if not likely, that a number of those returning players show real improvements this season and Tennessee’s pass defense becomes significantly better and isn’t a major liability again.
But it’s possible that they don’t. Tennessee’s run defense was already one of the SEC’s best last season so there’s not much room for growth there. If the Vols’ pass defense doesn’t improve than there’s only a very narrow path to the defense improving as a whole.
No defensive improvement could lead to a season where Tennessee underachieves.
Joe Milton III Doesn’t Show Expected Growth
Joe Milton III has started eight games in his five-year college career. Four games at Michigan and four games at Tennessee. For the majority of those eight games, he has been bad.
Jim Harbaugh replaced him with Cade McNamara as Michigan’s starter in 2020 and while an injury expedited the move, Josh Heupel replaced Milton with Hooker in 2021.
Like with the pass defense, Milton has improved. There’s no doubt about that. We saw it when he played as a back-up last season and, more importantly, we saw it in the Orange Bowl against Clemson— the best start of Milton’s career.
But what if that performance was a one-off and Milton doesn’t perform well consistently this season? Football is a quarterback driven sport and Tennessee’s offense puts a lot of pressure on its quarterback.
If Milton looks more like the guy that got benched at Michigan and again at Tennessee in 2021 rather than the guy who starred in the Orange Bowl than the Vols are bound to underachieve this fall.
That doesn’t seem likely, but it is possible.
