Tennessee football’s defensive line has feasted through the first two weeks of the 2024 season. One of the many encouraging parts of the Vols’ defensive line’s strong start to the season is that star edge rusher James Pearce has gotten off to a slow statistical start to the 2024 season.
Through two games, Pearce hasn’t recorded a single sack and only one total tackle while Tennessee’s dominated Chattanooga and NC State.
Meeting with the local media on Tuesday afternoon, Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks discussed why he doesn’t view it as a slow start for Pearce to open the 2024 season.
“I didn’t even know that. That James didn’t have a sack,” Banks said. “Because James is playing extremely hard for us. He’s getting a lot of attention, just like we thought he would.”
It’s still an incredibly small sample size for Pearce this season. He played just 10 snaps in the Chattanooga game and 29 snaps in the NC State game.
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PFF certainly isn’t the Bible but it does believe that Pearce is off to a slow start to the 2024 season, giving him just a 63.0 grade through two games after he earned a 90.4 grade a season ago. The site credits Pearce with three quarterback pressures this season and a strong run defense grade. A main reason why his grade is lower is due to missed tackle.
But, again, its still a very small sample size this season and opponents are expending a lot of resources trying to slow down the Preseason All-American and projected top five pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
“I think as long as he continues to work hard and play hard, I think the sacks will come,” Banks said. “He hasn’t pouted about it. He hasn’t said one word about it. I think he’s satisfied that we’re winning. We’re obviously playing at a high level and as long as everybody’s doing that, nobody cares who gets quote-unquote the statistics.”
The rest of Tennessee’s defensive line has benefitted from the attention that Pearce is drawing early this season. Players like Josh Josephs, Omari Thomas and Omarr Norman-Lott are getting more one-on-one opportunities because of it.
Tennessee’s defensive line will look to continue its early season success this Saturday when the Vols host Kent State at Neyland Stadium. But don’t expect Pearce to have a massive statistical game. Kent State is one of the worst FBS teams in the country and Pearce will likely have a small workload like he did against Chattanooga.
