The cheat sheet

Tennessee returns home to take on Georgia in what is a huge challenge for the Vols. Georgia comes in as the top team in college football playing their best football the back half of the season while Josh Heupel and the Vols are fresh off an extremely disappointing loss at Missouri. So what’s key for Tennessee today? Here are four in what we call the Saturday Cheat Sheet. 

Make it a 60-minute fight

You are a big underdog and no one expects you to even keep it close much less win. So it’s you against the world and somehow you have to make it a 60 minute fight. Find a way to be there at the end. That starts by being about to handle adversity. Georgia is going to make some plays. Defensively, the ‘Dawgs are going to stop you and force punts. You are going to make mistakes and have penalties, but you can’t let 2 mistakes before 4 and then 8. You gotta weather the bad better than you have this year. 

You can’t let adversity affect you for a whole quarter like you have too often this year. 

Find some success in the run game

That’s obviously easier said than done, but Georgia hasn’t been as great against the run this year as last year or the year before. It doesn’t mean people are running wild on them, but offenses have had more success this year. 

Up until Saturday at Missouri, Tennessee had been good running the football especially since the return of Cooper Mays. At Missouri the ground game was bad and Tennessee didn’t stay committed to trying to run it. 

The Tigers did some things differently on defense against Tennessee’s scheme and the Vols didn’t solve the riddle. 

Saturday against the Dawgs, Tennessee must have some success running the ball and that includes Joe Milton being a part of it as well. 

You simply can’t put the game on Milton’s shoulders to beat Georgia throwing it 40-45 times. 

Defend the middle of the field

Everyone knows how bad this has been especially the last three weeks. Teams are picking on Tennessee’s underneath coverage and are having a field day with it. At Missouri the linebackers seemed to drop too deep at times and they had no answer for covering someone in the flat. 

You can bet that Georgia with Brock Bowers and even their tailbacks will attack Tennessee in that 0-10 yard range challenging the linebackers as well as the nickel and safeties. 

Tennessee has to at least slow the success of that down on Saturday. It was easy for Missouri quarterback Brady Cook on Saturday because it was easy open stuff underneath with his receivers on the run. 

Find some chunks

Tennessee is a poor red zone team offensively. Georgia isn’t as good as they have been in red zone defense but have been pretty good You don’t line up inside the twenty and win consistently offensively. 

The other thing teams don’t do is drive the ball consistently on the ‘Dawgs. To move it you have to hit some chunk plays. 

Tennessee hasn’t been nearly as explosive as they were a year ago. The have had a chunk play touchdown in each of the last five games. 

The Vol offense has to find some chunks Saturday night as 10 play drives for points aren’t the norm against Georgia’s defense. 

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