Tennessee football’s last four true road games: a 27-13 loss at Georgia, a 63-38 loss at South Carolina, a 56-0 victory over Vanderbilt and a 29-16 loss at Florida.
Outside of the matchup against a hapless Commodore team in a stadium that had more Tennessee fans than Vanderbilt fans, the Vols have been miserable in their most recent road tests.
Neither of the three losses were competitive and two of the losses came as multi-score favorites. At best, Tennessee is in the midst of a bad stretch in road games. At worst, Tennessee has a real and serious issue playing on the road.
That sets the stage for No. 17 Tennessee’s weekend trip to Tuscaloosa to face No. 11 Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
The Vols are nine-point underdogs and have made improving on the road a true emphasis since their loss at Florida last month.
“We’ve actually been doing that since our last road game in portions of practice,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said Thursday. “Again, for us, you have to settle in and do the ordinary things in this game at a really high level and you have to do them consistently. It’s nothing extraordinary but if we can do that we’ll operate the way we need to.”
Heupel is certainly correct. Doing the ordinary things is the biggest key for Tennessee.
According to the Daily Beacon’s Caleb Jarreau, the Vols had five false starts against Florida and seven false starts against Georgia. In Tennessee’s loss at Alabama in 2021, the Vols committed five false starts.
It’s hard for any offense to have consistent success with that many pre snap penalties. For a Tennessee offense with little to no passing game, it’s impossible to have success working from behind the sticks.
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The Vols’ rushing attack is for real, they proved that definitively last week when they rushed for 232 yards against a stout Texas A&M run defense. But against another strong defense, Tennessee’s running game isn’t good enough to overcome a myriad of pre snap penalties and playing behind the sticks all game.
Passing is already difficult enough for Tennessee’s offense and facing a strong Alabama pass defense makes it all the harder. Kool-Aid McKinstrey and Terrion Arnold combine for one of the SEC’s top cornerback duos and Alabama’s pass rush is up there with Tennessee’s as the nations best.
Tennessee can easily have more passing success than they did against Texas A&M— low bar— but it’s unlikely to take radical step forwards against the Crimson Tide.
That means Tennessee must stay in front of the sticks and lean on its run game to move the football at Alabama. If the road woes of the Florida and Georgia games show up again, the rivalry game will be effectively over by the start of the fourth quarter.
Kickoff from Bryant-Denny Stadium is at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon. Brad Nessler, Gary Danielson and Jenny Dell are on the call for CBS.
