Tennessee Football is not ready to play with the big Dawgs

Tennessee Football held its own against Georgia, but it’s clear that the Vols aren’t quite yet ready to compete, or beat, the big dawgs of the SEC.

Before I dive into this, let me be clear, Tennessee football is going to be very good in the future. The defense has already shown that it can be elite. On the other hand, the offense has shown that they can compete with an elite defense for one half, and nothing more. If the offense didn’t completely fall apart in the second half, Tennessee could’ve beaten Georgia.

The wide receivers have been great through the first two games, and I would even say they were pretty good this game, too.

A combination of bad blocking from the offensive line and worse decisions by Jarrett Guarantano, the offense put the defense in a spot to fail. Guarantano had three turnovers, two from fumbles and an interception, and had another fumble that was luckily recovered by Wanya Morris. All of that came in the third quarter alone.

Before the third quarter, Tennessee did not have a turnover in its first two games of the season. Tennessee also had a 21-17 lead. After bad quarterback play, that lead quickly disappeared, and Georgia took the turnovers and ran with it.

The Bulldogs defense also came to play in the second half and backed up its offense. At the 10:31 mark in the fourth quarter, the Vols totaled for -1 yard in the second half. Two plays after this, Guarantano fumbled the ball for the third time, which was scooped and scored by a Georgia defender.

I know many Tennessee fans still have faith in Guaratano; at least I know there were before this game. He had flashes through the first two games, but he also had some mistakes throwing the ball that a fifth-year senior shouldn’t make.

Those mistakes and errors threw up my alarms, and although some Tennessee fans were happy with Guarantano, I was still skeptical. This game against Georgia backed up my opinion on Guarantano. He’s not good enough to keep Tennessee’s offense in a competitive game against a good football team.

He can beat South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Missouri, but he can’t beat Georgia, Alabama, or Florida. That won’t change this year either. Tennessee has Kentucky next week and Alabama the week after that. If second-half Guarantano shows up to either of those games, Tennessee will lose.

It’s not all negatives that came out of this game, though. Although the offense was terrible in the second half, the defense fought for all four quarters, and I think it’s clear that Jeremy Pruitt can put together an elite defense.

There’s a lot that happened in this game that needs to be addressed. I’ll be looking at all of it over the next couple of days, and I’ll go into more depth on how I feel about Guarantano and Tennessee’s offense after the Georgia game with each article.

Until Tennessee has a quarterback that can competently run the offense for four quarters against the best teams that the SEC can offer, Tennessee will not be ready to compete and beat the big dawgs of the SEC or college football.