Joshua Dobbs Has Amazing Stat Line At Florida

By Randy Sharber | Sep 28, 2015

Joshua Dobbs did something a little unusual at Florida on Saturday.

No, it was not “win” at Florida. But the Junior quarterback of the Tennessee Volunteers did some things that you never see statistically. Dobbs was the Vols leading rusher, leading passer and…..their leading receiver.

That is good and bad for the Vols. But in this case we will accentuate the good as Vol fans need to look for some silver linings. Dobbs was one of those silver linings.

I wrote before the game that I believed Joshua Dobbs would have to run the ball effectively against Florida in order to give the Vols a chance to win. It was my thoughts that Florida would be so geared up to stop Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara that Dobbs would have a few opportunities to take some pressure off of these backs.

Well, he did. And Tennessee did have their opportunity to win. They were not able to close the deal, but had a 55 yard field goal miss by about 12″ to the right of the right upright. Another heartbreaker for this young team and its fans.

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Dobbs showed great versatility as the Vols signal caller. In the first quarter with the Vols trailing 7-0, Dobbs took the shotgun snap and wheeled to hit Freshman Jauan Jennings in the left flat. Jennings is an ex-high school quarterback from Blackman High School in Murfreesboro.

Joshua took off toward the right sideline where Jennings threw the ball back to him. Joshua juked his way up the right sideline and outran the Gators to the end zone to tie the ball game. The result was a 58 yard touchdown for Tennessee and for Dobbs.

So Dobbs had 58 receiving yards after that one play to add to his stat line. Ethan Wolf was the only other Vol close to that yardage as he had 55 yards on 4 receptions.

As for his passing statistics, they were not much to write home about. Or to write a blog about for that matter. But still, it is such an unusual trifecta offensively that it still must be mentioned. Dobbs completed only 10/17 passes for 83 yards. Alvin Kamara and Jauan Jennings completed one pass each on trick plays to add 82 total yards to the passing game.

The Vols will have to get better in the passing game quickly. It is so out of sync at the moment that it doesn’t even resemble a good high school passing game. It looks like a bad high school passing game at the moment. That is being nice.

There is no timing at all. Vol receivers are getting open. Josh is just not seeing it. They are not always going to be wide open. But receivers Josh Smith and Von Pearson dropped balls that were right in their mitts on Saturday. Both were on third down conversions. Both would have extended Tennessee drives. That is discouraging for a quarterback. You don’t go back to those guys many times when that is what the give you in return.

As far as Dobbs rushing stats…he was big time. Joshua covered 136 yards on 18 carries. John Ward would have been calling the Dobbs runs as “Twisting, Turning and Diving” type of runs. He is extremely unconventional. He is sneaky fast, and his balance is unbelievable. It is hard to tackle this guy.

If you had told me that Dobbs was going to have 136 yards of rushing at the end of the game I would tell you Tennessee would win big. He did his part. Jalen Hurd added 102 tough yards as well. More than enough to win this game. Tennessee scored 27 points offensively. I thought if they could score 24 they would win.

It just did not pan out. The Vols lost again. Look, the Vols have to let this one go. They have Arkansas, Georgia and Alabama coming up. Tennessee needs to go 2-1 in that stretch. At worst 1-2. Arkansas is the most winnable game, but they match up well with Tennessee. It is going to be tough. Whoever loses this game will have a hard time making a bowl game this season.

Dobbs will have to have another great game. He is extremely capable. As far as the stat line, we don’t really need Josh to continue to be all three. But it was fun to see. Just wish it was in a winning situation.

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