Five quick thoughts on humiliation station
For Tennessee, it can't get much more humiliating than this. With a likely Sugar Bowl berth and potentially a 10-win season on the line, the Vols laid an egg against Vandy. Surrendering over 600 yards of offense to lose 45-34 to the Commodores.
1 — Nice start…for the offense anyway— If you’re reading this, you’re more than aware that the first quarter, sometimes the entire first half, hasn’t exactly been a spot where Tennessee has clicked on all cylinders. Tennessee’s offense got off to as good of a start as we’ve seen this season. The Vols scored 24 first half points and the only real blemish was a fumble from John Kelly on the Vandy 16 yard line.
That one didn’t hurt Tennessee though because the Vols’ defense intercepted Vandy on the very next play from scrimmage, setting up a two-play touchdown drive.
The Vols punted just once in the first half and scored on five of their seven possessions to take a 31-24 lead into the locker room.
The defense, which gave up 340 yards in the first two quarters, was a completely different story, and in the end doomed the Vols to one of the most embarrassing and humiliating losses the program has suffered in years.
Vanderbilt finished with 608 yards of total offense, scored 21 straight points, and broke the hearts of Tennessee fans everywhere.
2 — Joshua Dobbs — It’s a shame they wasted it, but Dobbs was excellent tonight in his final regular season game. Ever since the Vols’ loss at South Carolina in one of the worst performances of his career, Dobbs has simply been a one-man wrecking crew. In the previous two weeks, a good bit of that wreckage was done with his legs. Tonight, his production was almost all through the air and it was much needed.
Dobbs got off to one of the best starts throwing the football that you’ll ever have the pleasure of seeing. He was a blistering 17-of-18 in the first half for 205 yards and two touchdowns and at the end of the third quarter was 20-for-22. He virtually could do no wrong.
Some of the numbers that the Vols have put up in the last two weeks may have been inflated by the quality of defense they were facing, but that wasn’t the case for Dobbs tonight.
One of the most incredible aspects of tonight was that the Vols’ quarterback finished 31-of-34 for 340 yards and two touchdowns and the defense couldn’t do enough to turn it into a win.
3 — Pass defense — The good news for the Vols’ defense is that they played the run tonight better than they have in in more than month. The bad news was that they made Vandy’s Kyle Shurmur look like peak Aaron Rodgers.
When this game kicked off Shurmur’s career-high for passing yardage in a game was 279 yards, set against mighty Western Kentucky earlier this season. He topped that against the Vols. By halftime, with 289 yards. Yikes!
Shurmur destroyed both the Vols secondary and his previous career high for passing yardage, finishing with 416 yards.
Vandy, which came into the game 1.8 yards removed from having the worst passing offense in the league, just cut Tennessee up through the air tonight. Even as it was happening it was just mind-boggling to watch. The ‘Dores had 10 passing plays of 15 yards or more in the first three quarters alone.
Not that surrendering over 1,300 combined yards was in any way a positive, but at least Kentucky (on the ground anyway) and Missouri, had shown some life on offense. Vandy came into tonight with the worst offense in the SEC (336 yards per game) and finished with over 600 yards in this one.
I don’t care how many injuries you’re dealing with. As long as you’re fielding scholarship athletes, there’s no excuse for a performance like tonight. Humiliating really isn’t too strong of a word for what we saw in Nashville this evening.
4 — Derek Barnett — On the night he tied Reggie White’s career sack record with 31, No. 9 gets his own section. Not much has gone right for the Vols’ defense in the second half of the season, but that’s no reflection on Barnett. He’s been a savage amidst quite a bit of ineptitude on that side of the ball. All the mediocrity around Barnett only makes what he’s done this season more incredible. Opposing offenses have no need to game plan for anyone on the Vols’ defense other than him, yet he shows up every week and consistently wreaks havoc on the opposition.
Watching him play on this defense for the past month has been like what I imagine watching Michael Jordan play for the Washington Generals would have been like.
He’s now got a nation leading 12 sacks on the season and it will be a while before we see the likes of him in Orange again.
I’ve been fortunate enough to cover this program since the 2002 season. The only two guys I’ve seen in that time that I would mention in the same breath as Barnett are Jason Witten and Eric Berry.
5 — Run defense melts down late — Through the first three quarters of the game Tennessee's defense kept the Vanderbilt rushing game in check. The Commodores ran for only 84 yards through the first 45 minutes and weren't even averaging 4 yards per carry.
But, the Tennessee run defense that had given up 863 rushing yards against Kentucky and Missouri showed up.
Tennessee was leading Vanderbilt 34-24 when the Vols rushing defense went into the tank. First Khari Blasingame had a 12-yard rushing touchdown to close the gap to three. Vanderbilt took the lead on a 3-yard Darrius Sims rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter.
With the Vols trailing 38-34, the Vols' rush defense couldn't get a stop to give the offense the ball back within just one score. Vanderbilt ran the ball five times to go 80-yards and build an 11-point lead, 45-34.
After showing some life through three quarters, Tennessee's run defense showed why it's one of the worst in the country in the fourth quarter.