EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week, we grade Tennessee’s performance as it relates to General Neyland’s famous seven maxims of football. Welcome to the Rocky Top Report Card.
By SCOTT FELTS
Tennessee dropped a heartbreaker Saturday in Columbia, 27-24, but the General’s game maxims tell a more complicated story than just another road loss in the Southeastern Conference. Here’s how the Vols graded out this week.
Maxim 1: The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win. (Grade: F)
South Carolina committed nine penalties for 71 yards. Tennessee committed 12 for 90. That’s not a typo, the Vols were flagged three more times and gave up 19 more yards. The worst of it was a holding penalty that erased an 18-yard touchdown pass from George MacIntyre to Braylon Staley in the fourth quarter, a score that would have made it a two-possession game with under 12 minutes left. Two other touchdowns were called back due to receivers lining up wrong.
UT also lost a fumble on the final drive when Dylan Stewart forced MacIntyre down at the 34, which set up Malik Orsan’s 48-yard walk-off field goal.
To be fair, the Gamecocks threw an interception that TJ Metcalf picked off from LaNorris Sellers in the second quarter. But when the final margin is three points and you’re the team with more flags, more penalty yards, and a lost ball in your own territory with less than a minute to play, the mistakes column belongs to you.
Discipline, not talent, was the difference.
Maxim 2: Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way… SCORE. (Grade: C-)
Tennessee scored a touchdown off of the Metcalf interception
which set up DaSaahn Brame’s 1-yard touchdown plunge on fourth-and-goal to help tie the game at 14.
South Carolina scored the most important three points off of the late MacIntyre turnover. The one break Tennessee needed in the final minute – a stop, a sack, a penalty on a third down to keep the Gamecocks in long field goal range – never came.
South Carolina put together a six-play, 61-yard drive into the tying touchdown with 1:17 left, then needed just four plays and 33 seconds to set up the game-winner after the fumble. The Vols made their break count. They just didn’t make enough of them, and they gave one right back when it mattered most.
Maxim 3: If at first the game or the breaks go against you, don’t let up… put on more steam. (Grade: B.)
This is the Vols’ best grade of the day, and it’s not close. South Carolina scored on each of its first two possessions, a 17-yard touchdown pass to Mazeo Bennett Jr. and a 31-yard Sellers scramble, to jump ahead 14-0 before Tennessee’s offense had even found a rhythm.
Most teams fold. These Vols responded with an 18-play, 75-yard drive that consumed 9:05, capped by DeSean Bishop’s 1-yard plunge. Metcalf’s pick set up the next Vol TD. Mike Matthews scored on an 8-yard wildcat run with 24 seconds left in the half, capping 21 straight points in the second quarter.
When the world caved in at 14-0, Tennessee didn’t blink. They buried the Gamecocks for the next 30 plus minutes of football. The Vol defense held South Carolina to just three points across their next seven possessions. All five of Tennessee’s sacks came in the second half. The Gamecocks scored the final 10 points of the game in the final two minutes. More steam in those final few minutes would have warranted an A, and likely a Vols’ win.
Maxim 4: Protect our kickers, our QB, our lead and our ball game. (Grade: D)
Cooper Ranvier made his one field goal try, a 37-yarder in the fourth. Josh Turbyville boomed five kickoffs averaging 62.8 yards with four touchbacks but did kick one out of bounds for a penalty. The kicking game itself was protected.
The problem was everything around it. MacIntyre was sacked twice and fumbled once. He completed 16 of 23 passes for 136 yards without a touchdown (not counting the ones overturned by penalties). That’s efficient but not explosive, and the offense’s longest play was a 27-yard completion to Staley.
The lead? UT led 24-17 with under 12 minutes left and couldn’t close.
The ball game? Lost on a fumble at the 34 with 33 seconds on the clock.
You can protect the kicker all day, but if the quarterback’s turning the ball over and the lead’s evaporating, the maxim’s been violated in spirit even if not in letter.
Maxim 5: Ball, oskie, cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle… for this is the WINNING EDGE. (Grade: C.)
The defense as usual was the heart of this team on Saturday. Five sacks for 13 yards, eight tackles for loss, 56 total tackles, four pass breakups, an interception, and six quarterback hurries.
Dejuan Lane led the way with 8 solo stops. Ty Redmond had a career-high three breakups. Amare Campbell, Xavier Gilliam, Qua Moss, and Mariyon Dye each recorded a sack. Gilliam added three hurries. That’s a front seven flying around.
But here’s the sobering part: South Carolina’s defense piled up 81 tackles to Tennessee’s 56. Fred “JayR” Johnson alone had 14. The Gamecocks were more physical at the point of attack, and it showed on a fourth-and-1 stop in their own territory late in the fourth. That preceded the game-tying drive.
Tennessee’s defense was good. South Carolina’s was better in the trenches when it counted. The Vols had the winning edge in pass rush and takeaways. The Gamecocks had it in run-game violence.
Maxim 6: Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made. (Grade: B-)
Jackson Ross punted four times for 173 yards, a 43.2 average, with a 50-yarder and one kick downed inside the 20. Mason Love matched him in average almost exactly for the Gamecocks with three punts for 131 yards (43.7), and one downed inside the 20.
On kickoffs, Turbyville’s four touchbacks and 62.8 average edged Max Kelley’s two touchbacks and 64.6. Tennessee didn’t return a single kickoff or punt all game. The Vols made a fair catch on all the South Carolina kickoffs. In a game decided by a 48-yard field goal, the special teams battle was a wash, and a wash in a three-point loss stings. The Vols didn’t lose this game because of the kicking game, but they also didn’t win it there.
Maxim 7: Carry the fight to our opponent and keep it there for 60 minutes. (Grade: C)
Tennessee dominated possession time, 34:12 to 25:48. The Vols ran 50 rushing attempts to 31 for the Gamecocks. First-half possession was more even at 16:39 to 13:21 in the Vols’ favor, but UT controlled the second half 17:33 to 12:27. That’s carrying the fight.
The problem is where the fight went in the final four minutes. Tennessee went 0-for-2 on third downs in the fourth quarter. The Vols started a drive at their own 2 after a punt, moved to the 39, and stalled on downs. Then the final possession: three plays, 9 yards, fumble.
Overall Grade: C-
The C- reflects a team that was the better football team, for 56 minutes. The Vols lost the last four minutes, and in a rivalry game in Columbia with most of the 79,193 in attendance screaming Gamecocks fans, that’s the thing of nightmares.
The 12 penalties for 90 yards, the lost fumble at the 34, the failure to convert a third down in the fourth quarter, and the touchdowns erased by penalties aren’t bad luck. Those are self-inflicted wounds in a game where the margin was a field goal.
The Vols’ resilience earns real credit, coming back from 14-0 on the road in the SEC is no small thing, and the second-half defensive dominance with five sacks was the difference between a blowout and a three-point game. But the first maxim is the foundation everything else sits on, and when you make more mistakes in a game this close, the grade has to reflect that. Fix the discipline, protect the ball on that final series, and this article rewrites itself as an A.