Tennessee Football: 3 takeaways from Vols win over Ball State

Tennessee football absolutely dismantled the Ball State Cardinals by a score of 59-10 on Thursday night. Here are three takeaways from a huge Vol victory.

Coming into the year, expectations were generally optimistic for Tennessee football. Projections have generally been kind to the Vols, sometimes too kind. In any case, the Vols certainly proved game projections correct by beating the 35-point spread and crushing Ball State 59-10.

Of course, the beating was expected. Ball State was 6-7 in 2021, but against a MAC schedule where they were underwhelming compared to their 2020 championship season.

The game was won in the first quarter. Tennessee football took a flea-flicker by Ball State and turned it into an interception. After two scrimmage plays, it was 7-0 Tennessee. From there, the score snowballed. It was 38-0 at the half, and Tennessee didn’t look back for a second.

What was there to take away from such a crushing?

3. Hendon Hooker still has some accuracy issues.

It seems odd to talk about accuracy problems given Tennessee was hyper-efficient on offense. They scored on six of their seven non-half-ending drives and generally did whatever they wanted on offense.

Yet, within that avalanche of points, there’s still room for improvement.

Hendon Hooker had some great passes in this game. Yet, with the routine, quick throws, he was off the mark at certain points. Bru McCoy, in his first game with Tennessee, had to work for balls beyond where a quarterback would normally place said ball.

Hooker seemed to be more at home in the intermediate game, especially when he hit Jalin Hyatt on the first play of the game. But, on the deep throws, those were off too, sometimes airmailed beyond a receiver’s grasp.

It’s not a crucial problem at this point, but against a ranked Pitt next week, they’ll need a crisper ball from Hooker.