Tennessee football bounced back from its first loss of the season with an ugly 23-17 victory over Florida in overtime on Saturday night at Neyland Stadium. The Vols offense struggled for the third straight game but they did enough paired with a strong defensive performance to win.
Here’s a look at the Tennessee football stock report following its loss over Florida.
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Stock Up
Defensive Back Play
No position group on Tennessee’s team had more strong performance than its defensive backs did against Florida. At corner, Jermod McCoy was fantastic while Rickey Gibson was solid and made a massive play on fourth down.
At safety, both Will Brooks and Christian Charles turned in really strong performances. Then with Christian Harrison out, Boo Carter turned in the best performance of his young career at STAR.
Against a competent passing attack, Tennessee’s secondary played great. They’ll need another one next week against a stout Alabama passing attack.
Chris Brazzell
Chris Brazzell had basically been non existent for Tennessee ever since the season opener against Chattanooga. Now no one in the passing game had a great performance but Brazzell did play well.
The Tulane transfer hauled in three passes for 49 yards including an incredible tough catch in traffic. He also high pointed and caught a deep ball just out of bounds. There were few good things for Tennessee’s offense against Florida. Brazzell was one of them.
Stock Holding
Pass Protection
Tennessee’s pass protection was terrible a week ago against Arkansas. It was somehow just as bad at home against Florida.
The Vols’ offensive line held on pass plays three times and Nico Iamaleava was sacked three more times. Tennessee ended up moving the pocket on an abundance of pass plays in the second half. Against a pedestrian Florida pass rush, Tennessee’s offensive line couldn’t hold up.
Dylan Sampson
While Tennessee’s pass protection’s stock is holding low. Dylan Sampson’s stock is holding high. He rushed for 112 yards and three touchdowns against Florida and now leads the SEC in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns.
Perhaps what’s been most impressive against for Sampson is the way he’s held up carrying the ball so much. That was 27 carries and two more catches against Florida. He’s Tennessee’s best offensive player and is carrying a big workload at the moment.
Stock Down
Run Blocking
We’ve seen Tennessee’s offensive line look terrible in pass protection this season. However, we hadn’t seen them look as bad running blocking as they did against Florida.
There were few holes for Sampson to run through all night which is what made his performance all the more impressive. Florida also created negative plays in the run game and playing behind the sticks is obviously not a good spot for Tennessee’s offensive line to be.
Left tackle Lance Heard was actually worse run blocking than he was pass blocking according to PFF. The same was the case for Javontez Spraggins.
Nico Iamaleava
Nico Iamaleava obviously didn’t play a great game a week ago at Arkansas, but he didn’t turn the ball over and there were numerous issues around him and no easy plays to be made.
But against Florida, Iamaleava fumbled an exchange, forced a pass into double coverage and missed a pair of open deep shots in the second quarter. Yes, there were still offensive issues around Iamaleava but his struggles and missed plays were much more apparent.
