Tennessee football moved to 5-1 on the season after defeating the Arkansas Razorbacks in Fayetteville for the first time since 2001. While it was an ugly 24-17 win, it’s sports. This is nothing new for sports at any level. Some days the better team doesn’t look like it for most of the day.
It’s easy for a positive spin that says what matters for the moment is the Vols did enough to get the victory. But that nature of wanting to be the best shows all of the flaws that have to be corrected and rightfully so. It’s a thin line between being critical and being considered a negative thinker. Just like it’s a thin line between pointing out the positives and being considered a sunshine pumper. Somewhere in the middle is the absolute truth, and it has to be talked about.
Josh Heupel is one of the masters of coach speak. He says a certain sentence every week: “Keep looking at the scores. Every week’s its own season. The margins are small.” Even though Arkansas has had a rough go of it, and in Saturday’s game I could see a few reasons why, you have to come out ready.
Actually, the players told us last week that Arkansas was still to be respected, in so many words. A lot of us just chalked it up as “that’s what they are supposed to say.” Still, you can say that Tennessee’s struggles for a great chunk of the game had nothing to do with Arkansas and everything to do with Tennessee.
Going into the seventh game of the season, there are still things the Vols have to do better, including the coach. End-of-first-half clock management continues to be a mystery. Why give away valuable time when you have a pocket full of timeouts is a mind-scrambling question.
The defense forced a three-and-out late in the second quarter, and Tennessee got the ball back up 7-0 with 1:45 left. The Vols didn’t burn a timeout until there were 35 seconds left in the half, and another with 17 seconds to go. Then the MacIntyre fumble happened.
Through all of the ugliness, including self-inflicted pain points, a win was earned in the end. In the Southeastern Conference, I will take a win however I can get it, and it is week to week. Most say to look at what Alabama will do, when the truth is we don’t know what version of Alabama will show up to Neyland Saturday. Honestly, the focus should remain on Tennessee. The Vols just have to worry about and fix themselves.
It starts with taking care of the football. Tennessee turned it over three times. MacIntyre threw two interceptions, and his fumble right before the half would have resulted in an Arkansas touchdown if Radarious Jackson didn’t run down Quincy Rhodes Jr. after a 58-yard return. That changed the game.
Third downs were sort of a problem too. Tennessee went 4 of 13, and Heupel said as much after the game. The Vols have to be able to extend drives to survive against the best teams in the SEC.
“There’s some things on third down that we didn’t execute. That’s all 11,” Heupel said. “That’s a point of emphasis. We gotta continue to grow in our third downs.”
The Vols also can’t beat themselves with flags. Tennessee had six penalties for 54 yards, and the second half started with a false start that put the offense behind the sticks. They went three-and-out. On the next drive, an ineligible receiver call wiped out a completion, and MacIntyre threw an interception on the very next play.
Defensively, the third quarter was rough. Arkansas came into the day averaging 92.2 yards rushing per game, and the Razorbacks put up 133 on Tennessee. A lot of that came in the third quarter, when Arkansas just manned up and ran the ball down the Vols’ throats for 113 yards on 14 carries across back-to-back scoring drives.
Those lapses in execution could become more problematic. Tennessee is 5-1 through the first half of the season, and that is something nobody will undervalue. But what matters is how they can sharpen up the details to finish the back half strong. Having said that, there were some good things to take out of Saturday too.
The defense held Arkansas to 2 of 11 on third downs. Xavier Gilliam was in the middle of it again. He finished with a sack, 1.5 tackles for loss and two quarterback hurries, and he forced and recovered a fumble on Arkansas’ opening drive.
“Smart, tough, relentless competitor, loves ball,” Heupel said. “He’s the same dude every day in the meeting room, on the practice field. That parlays itself into playing consistently on game day too, and he’s been playing extremely well.”
MacIntyre threw for 247 yards and a touchdown in his first start. The two picks are on the stat sheet, but so is the 68-yard play-action throw to DaSaahn Brame early in the fourth quarter that set up a go-ahead score.
“But I thought he did a really good job in some adverse situations, just playing the next play and pulling the trigger, and it was a winning performance by him ultimately,” Heupel said.
The Vols’ playmakers did a lot of work once they caught the ball. Tennessee had 200 yards after the catch. Mike Matthews had 47 of his 78 receiving yards after the catch and added 14 yards rushing. He needs the ball in his hands while he is on the move, and he needs it a lot. Matthews has big playmaker energy.
DeSean Bishop ran for 138 yards on 19 carries, which gave him back-to-back games with triple-digit rushing yards. His 59-yard run got the 94-yard game-winning drive going, and he finished it off himself.
“Great effort by DeSean, obviously,” Heupel said. “But collectively as a group, all 11 did their job on that drive, and that’s what it takes.”
Jackson Ross averaged 47.5 yards on four punts and put two inside the 10. Tennessee also outscored Arkansas 17-3 over the last quarter and a half. Showing that they can finish strong when it all comes down to it.
Alabama is next. The Vols have plenty to fix, but all of it is on them, and they finished Saturday the right way. Tennessee could easily be a team that plays its way into more than anyone would have thought about before the season began. All is not lost because of a rough win in Fayetteville.
