After nearly a month away from home, Tennessee football returns to Neyland Stadium on Saturday night where they’ll host rival Florida in a critical SEC showdown.
The Vols are looking to bounce back from their first loss of the season a week ago against Arkansas while Florida enters the matchup on a two-game winning streak after a disastrous start to the season.
Taking a look at three keys for Tennessee to get back in the win column and to earn a victory in a rivalry matchup that’s given them fits.
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Start Fast … Especially Offensively
Remember when Tennessee’s offense seemingly scored a touchdown on its first two possessions of the game no matter who they played? That certainly hasn’t been the case this season. In fact, let’s take a look at Tennessee’s first two drives of its three matchups with power five opponents this season.
Against NC State, Tennessee went 34 yards on seven plays before punting and scored a touchdown on a nine-play, 62-yard drive. At Oklahoma, Tennessee went three-and-out in each of its first two drives. At Arkansas, Tennessee went three-and-out and then gained 28 yards on eight plays before punting.
In its first two drives in three meaningful games, Tennessee scored seven points and went three-and-out three times. They need to be better against Florida.
For one, it would provide some nice early game confidence for an offense for badly needs it. It would also help avoid an anxious energy from the sold-out crowd as Tennessee comes off a loss and faces the rival that’s given it fits.
Don’t Let Florida Dink And Dump You To Death
Florida’s offense is an interesting case coming into this game. The Gators have been playing two quarterbacks, their run game has largely struggled this season and their offensive line has some key players potentially out.
But Graham Mertz is still playing the majority of snaps at quarterback and those other factors lead Florida into playing into Mertz’ strength. Underneath passing, especially against zone defense. That’s an area we’ve seen Tennessee’s defense be susceptible to in the past, including games at Kentucky and Florida last season, and was a bit of an issue last week at Arkansas.
The reality is that for as good as Tennessee’s linebackers are at playing the run, they’re not very good in pass coverage. I expect Florida to try and take advantage of that with a number of short passes over the middle.
I’m curious to see if Tennessee plays more man defense when Mertz is in at quarterback in hopes of forcing Florida to pass protect for longer and take shots down field. Now that changes against DJ Lagway, whose strength this season has been his ability to connect on throws down the field.
Hit A Couple Vertical Shots Down The Field
I’m pretty confident that Tennessee’s offense will be able to run successfully on Florida. In fact, I’d be surprised if the Vols don’t total 175-plus rushing yards in this game. That makes Tennessee’s passing attack its offense’s X-factor in this game.
Coming off two games where the struggled to throw the ball badly, Tennessee has plenty of areas it needs to improve on in that regard. But what I want to see is Tennessee hit some vertical shots down the field.
The Vols don’t run a complex route tree and with their tempo not humming so far this season, opponents have been able to sit on the short stuff. By hitting a couple big plays down the field, I think that will keep Florida’s defense more honest and allow Tennessee to have more consistency in its short and intermediate passing.
Now, that will be harder if receiver Dont’e Thornton is unable to go. He’s currently listed as questionable and has been by far Tennessee’s best down field threat in the passing game this season.
