Tennessee's defense has not been what we expected it to be so far this season, but it is nowhere close to as bad as the box score stats will indicate.

You are locked on balls, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Volunteers, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, good Tuesday morning, everybody. Welcome into Locked On Balls. I'm your host, Eric Kane. Really appreciate you guys for being here making Locked On Balls, a part of your morning routine, your first listen, your first watch each and every single morning. We are part of the Lockdown Podcast Network where it is your team every single day. I'm your host, Eric Kane, a member, proud member of the vaulquest.com team here in town covering your Tennessee volunteers. In today's episode, is brought you in part by our friends over GameTime. You can download the GameTime app, create an account, put in the Redeem Code Lockedon College for $20 off your first purchase. Again, big shout out to our friends over at game time. Here on the day's show, we're going to dispel some myths, dispel some rumors about Tennessee's defense, and I'm going to show my work here. I'll say it here from the top. Like, in no way, shape, or form I try to say that Tennessee defense is elite or good or where it needs to be right now.

They got a long way to go, okay? But man, if you just pay attention to the box score stats,

if you just pay attention to what the total defense says, scoring defense and all that,

you're going to be disappointed because you're missing out on what a lot of things this

Tennessee defense has been doing pretty well through five games. But we know that

in order for Tennessee to reach the heights that it wants to, to go where it wants to, went on

the road, Alabama, Florida, contend for an SEC championship, obviously contend for a college

football playoff appearance. This defense has got to keep getting better. It's got to improve. It

does. But we are going to point out some things that the Tennessee defense has done pretty well so far through five games. That's coming up here in segment number one. And then we're going to take your mailback questions here in segments number two and three. All that and more right here on a Tuesday show. All right. So you look at Tennessee's defense so far. You just look at it from a broad paintbrush, right? And

you see exactly kind of where you're at. Tennessee scoring defense in the SEC so far in five

or five games total among SEC teams. Tennessee is number 15 in the country or 15 in the conference

at 29 points allowed per game.

That is not good, all right?

Only one point better than that of Arkansas that just fired Sam Pittman.

Offense is clearly not the issue at Arkansas.

It's that defense.

And I myself make comments about how Arkansas can't stop anybody defensively,

but per the stats, Arkansas allows just one more point than Tennessee.

Okay, so I'm showing you what the box score says right now.

Then I'm going to get into the point of my message here.

Look at the passing yards giving up on average per game.

...