Not dealing with reality? Bandit, in 2013 UT"s offense was 9th in the SEC in rushing yards, 13th in passing offense, 12th in total offense, and 11th in scoring offense. And of course, Worley got hurt and was out the last 5-6 games, and all those stats you mention dropped like a rock after that.
No offense, but who's not dealing with reality here? Those numbers don't lie.
12th in total offense. Out of 14 teams. Given that there were 4 from that OL in NFL camps this pre-season, there is no way anybody with a clue can say that criticizing that OL is anything other than warranted.
Our offense overall sucked, that's for sure. But given that we returned only SEVENTEEN TOTAL CATCHES at WR, Worley was relatively unproven and rusty, and our tailbacks were above average but not great, I expected us to suck overall and we did. But that hardly means the O line "sucked".
By any objective measure they did well (though I don't deny they could have been better).
Its true we were ninth in the SEC running the ball, but it was basically a tie with Ole Miss and MSU, who both had a yard or less per game than us.
That still sounds mediocre, but it's a bit misleading, because as everyone knows, the SEC is the best conference in football and there were some great running games last year. Mostly Auburn and Mizzou, but bammer was their usual good at running and since Arkansas ran on almost every play, they were ahead of us also.
My comparison was to previous years...and as I said (which perhaps is a bit sad) had the best rush O at Tennessee since 1998.
We were 44th in the country running the ball...maybe that says more about the last 15 years than it does last season.
We were 2nd in the SEC and 21st in the country in sacks allowed.
What i am saying is that although the O line could have done better, they were hardly the main problem last year and I would take them back...underperforming or no...in a heartbeat this year. If we had last year's OL we would have beyotch slapped the gators Saturday.
