Very little (which is shown in yards per rush, as opposed to rush yards per game). The run defense has to do with the front seven standing up and not getting wrecked. In particular, reference the second half against UGA. They wanted to run away and hide, but our defense did not let them. They struggled for that last rushing first down to put the game away. Look to the actual players on the field for your answers. Our kids are playing well in year two. Now is when we add the talent through recruiting. GoVols.
I agree. If teams could beat our d-line they would run on us to limit our possessions and tire out our defense. If they are already ahead this ends the game quicker and limits our chances on offense. It also makes their passing game harder to stop since we now have to account more potential plays they are able to use effectively.
Even if they get behind I think maybe they still would want to run the ball quite a bit. If they can score on sustained drives and tax our defense, then when they do score their own defense should be fresher than when we are getting stops. Especially given our depth issues on defense it seems like that could let some of our deeper opponents make it much harder on us in the late 3rd and the 4th quarters.
I know we score so fast that our defense plays a lot anyway, but it would be even harder on them if teams could run on us consistently. Maybe time or possession is something we don’t need to win but being on with 25 minutes to 35 is much different than for example last year’s Kentucky game. We won that game, but it was more challenging than is ideal.
Stopping us is hard even when defenses are fresh, but fewer possessions should mean fewer times they have to do it, and with defenders who should be better positioned to do so later on than ones who had to defend against our offense more possessions because they couldn’t keep their own on the field.
At some point if they are still behind late in the game, or somehow we get ahead enough (maybe via turnovers or some timely stops in the red zone) even though they are limiting our offensive possessions and otherwise finishing drives with points, strategy has to change of course.
Keeping it relatively lower scoring and consistently running the ball to open up their offense and limit our possessions seems to make conditions more favorable as the game goes on for them to make up ground.
The less stressful way that this can happen is they could make up ground slow and steadily by scoring at the end of their drives and getting a stop here and there. Teams have been able to get back into games with us despite our early often substantial leads if they can get a few stops. This is even with largely good run defense on our part. Turnovers we have been really good about, but that could work too if they could get us off the field or even score defensively.
If they are still behind and have to start scoring quicker late in the game and abandon the run somewhat because they are working against the clock, then their earlier ability to run effectively and the discipline to do so should still help them be able to do that than if we were possessing the ball more and defending less like we have all year since hardly anyone has been able to run effectively.
Our defensive line deserves all the credit they’ve gotten and probably a lot more besides. If opponents could run effectively against us, I think we would have lost at least a few more games than just Georgia.
The offensive line too has been solid, and is a big reason we are scoring so readily. Our own run game might not get as much attention as the big pass plays but it has been really solid this year. Protection has likewise looked a lot better than last year.
Really Georgia, and maybe Pitt somewhat have been the only team who has made our offense struggle at all and while we did look worse than normal we still played well enough up front against Georgia that there were enough opportunities to make plays we failed to make that if we had made them the whole game complexion would have been different. Maybe we lose anyway but it would have been very competitive.
