What we saw Saturday\nafternoon was evidence of evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m not talking about\nDarwin stuff here, folks. I’m talking about a more germane topic: Tennessee\nfootball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Knoxville this past\nSaturday, the Vols undressed and blew out South Carolina 41-21. They did it\nwith presumed starter Brian Maurer on the shelf because of concussion protocol.\nThey did it with much-maligned, second-team quarterback Jarrett Guarantano\nleaving the game with a broken wrist after throwing a touchdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the way, JG had\nsurgery on his wrist Sunday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Vols did it without\ndefensive tackle Darel Middleton, who was ejected for a targeting foul. They\ndid it despite numerous bad calls that went against them. These Vols swam\nupstream for much of the first half, yet kept battling, kept fighting and put\nit all together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And they finally got the\nMuschamp monkey off their back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It didn’t seem to matter\nwho they threw to the Lions at quarterback. Before he got hurt, Guarantano was\nhaving a career day. He was 11-19 for 229 yards with two TDs, no picks and no\nsacks. He played well against what some believe is an elite defensive front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Guarantano left the\ngame, J.T. Shrout was the next man up. What did he do? Tossed a 55-yard TD\nstrike to Marquez Callaway. Shrout was 7-11 for 122 yards. This was\nencouraging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juaun Jennings showed\ntrue leadership with seven catches for 174 yards and a pair of scores. Callaway\nhad three grabs for 102. The receivers showed up. Special teams were big.\nCallaway returned a punt for a 65-yard TD. Daniel Bituli blocked a punt and\ncovered it for a touchdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The offensive and\ndefensive lines have made great strides as the season has progressed. UT’s\noffense had 485 total yards while SC was limited to just 78 yards on the\nground. Gamecock quarterback Ryan Hilinski threw for 319 yards, but was sacked\nthree times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gen. Neyland’s Game\nMaxims were on full display Saturday. Tennessee made fewer mistakes and won the\ngame. Tennessee made breaks for itself … and scored. The breaks went against\nUT and the Vols just put on more steam. The Vols protected the quarterback, the\nkicker, the ball and the game. They gang tackled and pursued. They pressed the\nkicking game and made two breaks that earned 14 points. They carried the fight\nto South Carolina for 60 minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Check all the boxes and\nthis was a thorough whipping of a team that beat then No. 3 Georgia in Athens\nand pressed No. 7 Florida in Columbia for three-and-a-half quarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tennessee coach Jeremy\nPruitt cautioned Vol Nation in pre-season that the Vols were a work in\nprogress, that guys who probably weren’t going to be ready to play as the\nseason started would be ready by Week 4 or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’re seeing that now.\nFor Tennessee Saturday, it was all hands on deck. And all hands played a major\nrole. Just imagine how bad the score would have been had Tennessee not come up\nempty in two red-zone trips. It might have put 50 on the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This effort sort of made\nthe Big Orange faithful forget a bit the embarrassing loss to Georgia State and\nthat 0-2 start. The Vols have four games left and all are winnable. And if they\ndo win all four games, guess who finishes third in the SEC East this year at\n7-5 overall and 5-3 in the league? What if that same team wins its bowl game\nand finishes with an 8-5 mark? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Big Orange fans would be\nelated with that, given their team’s ignominious start. But at least, for one\nday this fall, Tennessee fans felt good about the Big Orange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Oct. 26, 2019, that\u2018s\nall they wanted feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jim\nSteele is a correspondent for Magic Valley Publishing and host of The Pressbox,\nwhich airs 4-6 p.m. Monday-Thursday on WRJB 95.9 FM, Camden, Tenn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What we saw Saturday afternoon was evidence of evolution. I’m not talking about Darwin stuff here, folks. I’m talking about a more germane topic: Tennessee football. In Knoxville this past Saturday, the Vols undressed and blew out South Carolina 41-21. They did it with presumed starter Brian Maurer on the shelf because of concussion protocol….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":11798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[259,242],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsleaderonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}