Tim Banks has surely heard the critics, Yes, Tennessee’s defensive coordinator is aware that his defensive front didn’t make much of an impact against Ball State, at least in terms of sacks.
Banks, however, said that the Vols showed signs of being better than the stats would indicate. The biggest lowlight on the box score was zero sacks against the Cardinals.
“We showed some flashes in terms of what we want to be and what we’re capable of being,” Banks said. “I thought those guys did a good job obviously of getting rid of the ball quickly, but when he held it, I thought we applied some pressure.
“Was it perfect? Absolutely not, but I thought for the most part, those guys did a good job of executing what we asked them to execute.”
That flies in the face of that box score.
“I mean, the reality, we obviously wanted to sack them,” Banks said. We want to get as many takeaways as we can, but I think the most important thing is the win, so at the end of the day, we felt like we had enough mechanisms in our toolbox to be able to get the win, and obviously that’s what we did.”
That could mean that Banks has many more tricks up his sleeve that will result in countless sacks this season. We’ll see. The Vols play Pittsburgh on Saturday. In its season opening game against West Virginia, Pitt relied on play-action passing based off of a physical running game.
“They’re an experienced group up front,” Banks said. “They’re big.”
The lack of sacks against Ball State could be due to a few things. As Banks alluded, Tennessee probably could have added more fuel to the fire and manufactured a strong pass rush with more blitzing defenders. The Vols showcased several different defensive stunts and twists against the Cardinals that Banks could have been testing considering Ball State was so outmanned.
There’s also the distinct possibility that Tennessee’s main pass rushers didn’t play well initially and then were replaced by players lower on the depth chart that needed more game experience.
“We tried to get guys up front, in terms of the rotation, (in the game) as well early, even the linebacker position where we’re a little bit limited obviously going into the game,” Banks said of the substitution pattern. “But yeah, we felt good…We felt like we got the guys in the game early enough that they felt like they were some real, meaningful minutes that they were contributing to.”
Sacks or not, Banks had no issue with Tennessee’s style of play as the the Vols head into Saturday’s matchup.
“I think the physicality was good,” Banks said. “I didn’t have a problem with how physical we tried to play. We’re never as happy as we want to be after a game. Did we tackle at 100-percent? No, so we’re disappointed that way. Did we tackle well enough to win? I think so…We’ll continue to get better tackling, but I was not disappointed coming out of the game in terms of our tackling.”
