Tennessee’s offense turned in one of its worst performances in Josh Heupel’s three-plus seasons as head coach during its 19-14 loss at Arkansas on Saturday night.
The Vols totaled just four first downs in the first half, failed to eclipse 150 passing yards until the final drive of the game and allowed four sacks.
Those pass protection flaws were the most obvious issues for the offense, particularly for offensive tackles Lance Heard and John Campbell. Neither was able to hold up against what’s a middle of the pack Arkansas defensive line, something that bodes poorly as Tennessee prepares for the gauntlet in SEC play.
“We love those guys, believe in those guys,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said. “Those two, like pretty much everybody offensively, can perform at a higher level as we go. And have performed at a higher level than they did the other night and some of that’s just ordinary things— fundamentals, technique, alignment, assignment and technique.”
As bad as Tennessee’s offensive tackles played, Heupel hits the nail on the head. There is an abundance of blame to go around for the offensive issues against the Razorbacks.
Tennessee’s receivers struggled to get separation particularly down the field. With the Vols unable to take the top off the defense, Arkansas sat on short routes and challenged everything in the passing game including quick screens which were completely ineffective.
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Nico Iamaleava also played the worst game of his young career against Arkansas. He was indecisive with the ball at times and inaccurate on a couple passes that would have been crucial in Tennessee’s ability to bleed the clock out and finish off a road win despite an ugly performance.
“Nico played really well a week ago (Oklahoma),” Heupel said. “Clean in his decision making, decisive, accurate with the football. This past week, first play of the ball game, rips a nice ball. Sum of all parts. As the game went on, we didn’t play as clean. Some of that’s Nico. Some of that’s the guys around him. At the quarterback position, takes 10 guys around you playing at a high level too.”
The players around Iamaleava didn’t do him any favors and neither did his head coach. Heupel the play caller was unable to create anything easy for Tennessee’s offense to get into a rhythm and the Vols not playing with tempo made life easier for Arkansas’ defense against a struggling passing attack.
Tennessee’s all around offensive issues against Arkansas is in a weird way both discouraging but also a positive moving forward. The negative— this offense isn’t going to be great. There are too many fundamental issues to think that the Vols are going to get them all fixed and turn into a top 10 offense this season.
But on the positive side— things are very unlikely to be as bad as they were in the Arkansas game again. There was so many things compounding to create negative results that it’s extremely unlikely that we see the execution go that poorly on a consistent basis.
Returning home should help Tennessee, especially with the pre snap penalties that consistently kept Tennessee behind the sticks and kept them from leaning on a rushing attack that was starting to have some success in the second half.
The Vols look to get things back on the right track on Saturday night when they host Florida for their SEC home opener at Neyland Stadium. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. ET and Bob Wischusen, Louis Riddick and Kris Budden are on the call for ESPN.
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An embarrassing loss to a mediocre team.