Despite the excitement of their 45-26 win over the Syracuse Orange to open the season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Saturday, Tennessee football suffered unfortunate news with a barrage of injuries. The Vols were already without Jermod McCoy and David Sanders Jr., and then Jaxson Moi, Rickey Gibson III and Nathan Robinson all went out.

Moi and Gibson were the headliners as two starters on Saturday who went down. Josh Heupel revealed that Gibson will be out for an “extended period of time” and that Moi would be out this Saturday when the Vols face the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers but is expected back relatively soon.

On paper, that would suggest that Gibson’s loss is bigger. After all, Tennessee football is already without its No. 1 cornerback in Jermod McCoy, so losing Gibson is a big deal. However, given the makeup of the roster, Moi is still the bigger loss, even if he’s just out for the Vols’ matchup against ETSU.

Defensive tackle is already thin for UT this year. The Vols had to replace their three tackles from last year in Omari Thomas, Omarr Norman-Lott and Elijah Simmons. Moi, Daevin Hobbs and Bryson Eason returned, and those six made up all the regular rotational players for the two defensive tackles in Rodney Garner’s system last year.

However, in addition to three gone, Hobbs is out right now too. That means Eason is the only experienced returning defensive tackle. Robinson has been in the system, and he forced a fumble that Colton Hood returned for a touchdown on Saturday, but he also got banged up.

That leaves Jamal Wallace, who saw action with Eason, and Josh Schell, the Grand Valley State transfer, as the only three defensive tackles who are 100 percent healthy and have experience playing at the college level. Ethan Utley, Charles House III and Isaiah Washington are all highly touted freshmen, but they may not be ready.

Garner’s best play is to move Tyre West, Dominic Bailey and Tyree Weathersvy all inside at different times from that one defensive end spot. However, the end spot works the way the tackles do in this system. Garner likes to go a combined 10-deep for the three spots with experienced players, and moving them won’t change the fact that he can only go six-deep, maybe seven, right now.

Of course, Heupel and Tennessee football won’t need Moi against the Bucs, but if he’s being held out, that means he won’t be 100 percent for the Georgia Bulldogs, where they will need him. As a result, this is a problem no matter how you slice it, and you can’t overrated how the defensive line played against Syracuse. Fran Brown’s team is awful in the trenches.

It’s a different story in the secondary.

Safety is a real concern, but the Vols are loaded with cornerbacks. We already mentioned Hood scoring a touchdown. He also had three pass deflections, and the Colorado Buffaloes transfer proved himself more than capable of filling in for McCoy on Saturday and still playing well after Gibson got hurt.

Jalen McMurray is also an experienced player and was elite on Saturday with a sack and a tipped pass that was intercepted. Then there’s Ty Redmond, a true freshman who looked ready to go. He had the highest PFF grade of any defensive back stepping in for Gibson, so there’s no reason not to believe in this unit.

Add in the fact that the consensus is McCoy will return by the time Tennessee football will face Georgia, and it’s pretty clear you’d rather have Gibson out for a while than a key defensive tackle out for even a short period of time if you’re the Vols this year. As a result, a lot hinges on when Moi will be ready to go for this team.