Tennessee Vols Football: Report Card Grades Following the Florida Game

Saturday was supposed to be Tennessee's welcome back moment. The hype surrounding the Vols vaunted passing attack was at its highest level in years. 

Someone apparently forgot to tell the Gators how the script was supposed to go as Florida handled Tennessee with relative ease throughout the game. 

This week's report card will not be pretty. Very few units deserve a passing grade following Tennessee's latest debacle in The Swamp.

Let's dive in and see the carnage for ourselves, shall we.   

Quarterback

Grade: C

For a sophomore quarterback playing his first game outside of the state of Tennessee, Bray did okay for the most part. The interception on the first play of the second half was a killer for the Vols, and the young signal-caller was lucky that he only totaled two INTs on the day.

Gators defensive backs dropped or misplayed at least five golden opportunities for interceptions.

Not all of Bray's moments were terrible, however. After losing his go-to target Justin Hunter on the first passing play of the game, Bray settled in and drove the Vols into Gator territory.

Bray finished 26-of-48 for 288 yards. His three touchdowns continued his streak of games with multiple scores to eight straight.

Running Back

Grade: D 

After Tauren Poole's 10-yard run on the Vols first play from scrimmage, the senior didn't have another run over five yards until the fourth quarter. 

True freshman Marlin Lane had trouble getting anything going in his five carries as well. The two Tennessee backs ran for 27 yards on 14 carries. 

It's obvious that Dooley and company will have to go back to the drawing board on the run game. It's not entirely the running backs fault that Tennessee's run game was non-existent Saturday, but neither Poole nor Lane have shown that they have what it takes to be consistent backs in this offense.

Offensive Line

Grade: C-

The Vols O-Line was once again a mixed bag of good pass protection and terrible run blocking. The big men up front only allowed three sacks but contributed to the Vols lack of production on the ground by again getting almost no push for the running backs. 

Add center James Stone's sudden inability to correctly snap the ball and you see another reason why Tennessee had to play catch-up all afternoon long. 

Wide Receiver

Grade: B+  

Losing top-target Justin Hunter on the game's first pass play was detrimental to the Vols offensive game plan. As head coach Derek Dooley put it following the game, "We were playing left-handed." 

Others stepped up in Hunter's absence with nine different receivers catching passes on the afternoon.

Da'Rick Rogers, the yin to Hunter's yang, hauled in five catches and had a touchdown, but it was tight end Mychal Rivera who led all receivers with 71 yards receiving. He also had a touchdown.

True freshman receiver DeAnthony Arnett had the most catches with nine.

Defensive Line

Grade: D

The defensive line had just a couple of nice moments against the Gators. There were a few tackles for loss and a sack, but for the most part, this unit was just as inconsistent as most of the other units. 

The biggest problem with this unit was the lack of pressure on Florida QB John Brantley, who dinked and dunked the Vols all day long. 

Linebackers

Grade: C- 

There were a couple of bright spots among freshmen A.J. Johnson and Curt Maggitt, but this unit as a whole routinely missed tackles and didn't do anything to disrupt Brantley's short passing game.

Johnson did force a fumble in the third quarter, and Maggitt showed his potential with a couple of nice hits.

Defensive Backs

Grade: C 

Tennessee's secondary really didn't have to do too much in Saturday's game. It's not like Florida was airing it out to Reidel Anthony and Ike Hilliard all day. But you'd like to see at least one of your speediest guys try to catch up to Chris Rainey on the long touchdown in the third quarter.

There were some inexplicable missed tackles among this group as well.

Special Teams

Grade: F 

In order to pull off an upset of a ranked Florida team, in The Swamp, Tennessee's special teams would have had to be nearly perfect. It wasn't. As a matter of fact, Tennessee's special teams ended up at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. 

Tennessee kicker Michael Palardy missed a very makeable field goal on Tennessee's first drive and had a punt blocked early in the second quarter. 

On the bright side, Tennessee returners didn't drop any of Florida's four puntsone of which went out of bounds.

Coaching

Grade: D+ 

There's no way the coaches would have known that their top offensive weapon would go down five minutes into the game. But the team's lack of composure following Hunter's injury was disappointing. It is the mark of a young team to lose the faith when adversity hits, but it didn't seem like the coaching staff did much to curb that attitude until halftime. 

There were a couple of drives completely wasted by the Vols keeping the ball on the ground despite the complete and utter lack of anything positive in the rushing game, and Dooley's failed two-point conversion call in the third quarter was an all-time head-scratcher.

Overall

Grade: D 

A young team in a hostile environment against SEC-level competition faced early adversity and simply could not overcome it. The Vols game plan likely centered around Justin Hunter, and losing him five minutes into the game was an early knockout punch. 

The Vols were not disciplined on the defensive side. Their special teams play was atrocious. The running game was non-existent. And quarterback Tyler Bray made a ton of mistakes that didn't show up in the stat line only because Florida's defensive backs couldn't catch.

Despite catching quite a few breaks down the stretch, the team could not capitalize because of the early hole.