Tennessee Volunteers

Tennessee Football: Five Takeaways from Vols Win Over Ohio Bobcats

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Tennessee football moved to 3-0 with an ugly 28-19 victory over the Ohio Bobcats Saturday. Here are five takeaways from the Volunteers’ win.

Maybe Tennessee football isn’t at the level everybody thought it would be at before the start of this year. For the second time in three weeks, the Vols struggled to put away a Group of Five team.

This one was ugly.

Tennessee took a 14-12 lead into halftime and a 21-19 lead into the fourth quarter. Penalties, a costly turnover, and predictable play-calling were the stories of this game.

Oh, and injuries were too.

However, those weren’t the only problems. Tennessee football once again has some recurring issues that it needs to address. And with the Florida Gators coming to town, the Vols can’t address them soon enough.

However, 3-0 is 3-0. Here are five takeaways from the Tennessee football victory over the Ohio Bobcats.

1. Offensive line play is still atrocious.

Butch Jones and Mike DeBord switched up the line this week by moving Coleman Thomas to tackle, Dylan Wiesman to center, Jack Jones as the other guard, and benching Drew Richmond.

It didn’t work.

The line played awful for much of the game, and the main culprit is Coleman Thomas again. Everybody thought that moving him to tackle was the answer, but he had multiple penalties and got beat too many times. Something is wrong with him this year that the Vols need to address.

2. Defensive line play is improving.

Okay, so allowing Greg Windham to stay on the field too many times is not the greatest thing. But even when Danny O’Brien got hurt, the Vols got a solid push all night.

Kahlil McKenzie, Kendal Vickers, and Shy Tuttle all got pushes in the middle. Derek Barnett returned to form on the outside. The biggest reason for their struggles on defense was at the lack of depth at linebacker. And that is due to injuries. They also didn’t have much help from this unit…

3. Secondary play has been disappointing.

Yes, Cameron Sutton joined Jalen Reeves-Maybin and Darrin Kirkland Jr. this week as key injuries on defense. However, we already knew Tennessee was thin at linebacker, so the struggles without both starters there was understandable.

The secondary, on the other hand, was supposed to be loaded. And outside of Micah Abernathy, nobody played well. Okay, so Malik Foreman’s suspension didn’t help either.

But Emmanuel Moseley got abused far too many times this game. And Todd Kelly Jr. has been a massive disappointment. Those two guys had tons of hype going into this year and have failed to meet it. That all came to fruition today.

4. Josh Malone is an unstoppable target.

Why don’t Mike DeBord, Butch Jones, and Joshua Dobbs all agree to just throw fades to Josh Malone every time? For the third straight week, he has changed the game every time he caught the ball.

Dobbs doesn’t have the prettiest downfield ball, but Malone can come down with anything against a defensive back. He had five receptions for 69 yards and two touchdowns against the Bobcats.

If they target him more, he could be an Amari Cooper type player for Tennessee football. Yes, he’s that good. But speaking of Dobbs…

5. Joshua Dobbs has to work on his downfield passing.

This wasn’t all his fault. After all, he dealt with a very inconsistent offensive line all night. However, Dobbs missed Josh Malone twice on sure touchdown passes, and he missed another downfield pass in the game.

Other than that, his play was good for the most part, but Tennessee needs him to convert on those easy touchdown passes. If they come up against Florida, he has to hit them.

And by the way, one bit of good news is Tennessee is at least undefeated heading to face the Gators.

Amidst all these concerns, that was the goal to this point. Now comes the most brutal part of the season.

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