Tennessee’s secondary is the biggest question mark on the Vols’ roster entering Josh Heupel’s fourth season as head coach. While Tennessee impressed in its 69-3 season-opening victory over Chattanooga, the Mocs did very little to test Willie Martinez group in the opener.
The Vols played an abundance of players and held up well with projected starting cornerback Rickey Gibson missed the game. Martinez liked what he saw from his group despite the lesser competition in the opener except for one specific area.
“The communication has to be a lot better,” Martinez said earlier this week. “That’s where we got to improve on. And that’s player to player. … It’s got to be between the whole back end. And we want to see the improvement of communication, getting lined up at a faster pace and getting our eyes when they belong.”
Communication shortcomings for Tennessee’s defense early in the season shouldn’t be a massive surprise. The Vols are replacing all five starters in their defensive backfield from a season ago. After having a group that had largely played together for multiple years, Tennessee’s defensive backfield now has little continuity and experience playing together.
And while some players in the defensive backfield have been in Tennessee’s system for many years, multiple others are in either their first or second year at Tennessee.
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While those are explanations for why Tennessee might have had some communication gaffes, they won’t be worthwhile excuses moving forward. The Vols have to improve their communication and be ready to hold up on the back end.
“We had to be at midseason form and that had to be with the communication, the alignments then obviously executing the defense,” Martinez said. “We got to improve tremendously with communication like I said just a minute ago. But I thought they played hard. I thought they played energized.”
The challenge increases dramatically for Tennessee’s secondary this weekend when they face NC State in the Duke’s Mayo Classic. The Wolfpack’s offensive line showed shortcomings in their opener but they have a veteran quarterback in Coastal Carolina transfer Grayson McCall and a group of strong pass catchers including ACC Rookie of the Year Kevin Concepcion, Ohio State transfer receiver Noah Rogers and UConn transfer tight end Justin Joly.
NC State has the weapons to test Tennessee’s new and unproven secondary. The Vols must improve their communication to avoid giving up big plays.
Kickoff from Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte is at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night. Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe are on the call for ABC.
