Arkansas running back Mike Washington, some great bulletin board material for the volunteer defense and why that probably wasn't the best idea for the hogs.

You are locked on balls, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Volunteers, part of the locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What is up, everybody? Welcome into it, your Thursday morning. Lock-on balls, couldn't do without you every day. Thanks so much for making Lockdown Ball is your first listen, your first watch each and every single day. We are a part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, where it is your team every single day, free and available wherever you you get your podcast today's episode is brought to you part by our friends over at fandle

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eric k and a member of the volkwest dot com here in town. So appreciate you guys for, you know, being here with us here today. And, of course, falling along with everything that's happening with Tennessee football each and every single day. Today's episode is going to be a fun one.

Going to chat two segments, throwing it back, talking about the 1971 Liberty Bowl win over Arkansas with

Neeland Press Corps's Noah Taylor. That's coming up in segments two and three and about

championships corner coming to Neeland Stadium fall of 2026. Thoughts on that coming up in

segments two and three. But first, you have a running back for Arkansas that did what you should not do. You have PR directors. You have

SIDs that are sitting there cringing. He gives Tennessee's defense some excellent bulletin board

material. But to be honest with you, is he wrong? The answer is no, he is not wrong. However,

he still shouldn't have said that. Both can be true. What I'm getting at here is you have Arkansas running back Mike Washington during a media availability earlier this week. He's quoted in saying this, quote, they have a great defense, that being Tennessee. They have a great defense, but a lot of holes, a lot of holes in their defense. So it's going to be a fun game, end quote. That's all he said. I mean, nothing too outlandish, nothing, he didn't go on and on and on and talk about how Tennessee was bad in this respect or bad in that respect or calling anybody out by names, but he said, quote, they have a great defense, but a lot of holes, a lot of holes in their defense, so it's going to be a fun game.

Well, first and foremost, to start from the principle of where he's not wrong, Tennessee's

rush defense has not been good enough.

It's middle of the pack to bottom half of the league for sure.

It's certainly not as bad as Arkansas as what we'll get to here in a moment.

But Tennessee's

rush defense has not been the best. Over 200 yards gained on the ground in two SEC games against

Mississippi State against Georgia. Sacks have pushed that back to under 200 yards. But if you're

talking about yards gained, both the Bulldogs of Georgia and of Mississippi State gained over 200 yards.

So that's not good enough. Don't get me wrong. Also, you look at Tennessee, and I've been kind of beating this drum for two weeks, right? You look at Tennessee's past defense ranks towards the bottom right in front of Arkansas. Look at Tennessee's scoring defense. I think it's 14th in the league. Not good enough, but again, scoring defense can be skewed a little bit because,

again, take Mississippi State, for example, if you're new to the show and you hadn't heard me say this yet, here you go. If you're in every day, I'm sorry this is about the 17th time I've said this, but take the Mississippi State game, for example, four scoring drives, the touchdowns, only one of which came over 26 yards, short fields.

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