The Vols are looking for bowl eligibility as they step out of conference play. What’s key to win #6 and a victory over South Alabama? Here are four, in our weekly Cheat Sheet.

You be you especially out of the gates — The best thing this Tennessee team does is start fast. They are a great first quarter team scoring 148 points in 10 games in the first 15 minutes this season. The only team to hold the Vols to just one score in the first quarter this season is Florida. South Alabama shouldn’t be the second. Tennessee’s tempo has affected everyone early and it should bother the Jaguars tonight. The Vols have been a focused team to start games and they have been sharp. No reason they shouldn’t be this evening.

2. Nothing easy — Tennessee gave up two chunk play touchdowns in a 39 yard rush to James Cook and a 23 yard pass to Cook. For the year Tennessee has now given up 6 touchdown plays over 20 yards, which isn’t terrible, but the two against Georgia were killers. Tennessee is the heavy favorite in this game. South Alabama is without their starting quarterback. The Jaguars have 4 touchdown plays this year of 20+ yards. They just haven’t showed a ton of explosive plays this year. They have 5 plays of 50+ yards on the season and 37 plays of 20+ yards. Tennessee has 50 plays of 20+ yards and they have five plays of 70+ yards. Without Bentley at quarterback throwing the ball vertically is a bigger challenge. Tennessee simply can’t bust anything and give South Alabama a cheap score.

3. Take care of the ball— Over the last four games, Tennessee is -2 in the turnover margin. The Vol offense has turned it over 5 times in the last four games including two against Georgia that the Dawgs turned into 14 points. The offense must take care of the ball and the defense needs to be more opportunistic. Tim Banks’ unit has forced more than one turnover in a game since the South Carolina game. South Alabama has turned it over 15 times this season.

4. Run the ball —Statisically, Tennessee hasn’t been an effective running team against good defenses the last three weeks. Part of that is because of the sack yardage and part of that is they haven’t tried to run it much with their tailbacks. At Alabama, the Vol running backs had 14 rushes for 38 yards. At Kentucky they had good numbers averaging 9.5 yards a carry but the tailbacks only ran it 12 times. Against Georgia they had 63 yards on 17 carries. The Vol tailbacks have had 30 carries combined in a game just twice this season (Bowling Green and Missouri). Tennessee needs to get back to running the ball more effectively and doing it with their tailbacks the last two weeks of the year.