Sadly, the midpoint of the college football season is almost here for the Tennessee Volunteers. We look forward to the greatest sport in the world all year long but are only guaranteed 12 glorious weekends.

The bye week brought with it a chance to reintroduce ourselves to our families and gives us the opportunity to see where things stand for the Vols after the 1st 5 games.

First, the way the schedule broke down likely makes Tennessee fans feel better these days. Had the loss to Florida come in Week 5 instead of Week 3, there would major angst amongst Vol Nation. Instead, the victory over South Carolina meant some revenge for 2022, and momentum heading into the break.

At 4-1 (1-1 SEC), Tennessee has a lot of season still in front of it.

Let’s start on offense. At QB, the numbers for Joe Milton are good. He’s completing 63% of his passes for 1,164 yards (232.8 per game). He has 9 TD passes and 3 INTs. Milton also has 4 rushing TDs and picks up 27.8 yards a game on the ground.

But the sky-high expectations for Milton have yet to be realized. The offense he commands ended the 5th week of the season ranked 21st in the country. Again, that’s good, but not the top ranking we saw from this offense a year ago.

Decreased production out of the passing game has kept UT a few steps behind their blistering 2022 pace. Oregon transfer WR Dont’e Thornton, Jr. was supposed to help pick up the slack following the departures of Jalin Hyatt and Cedric Tillman to the NFL. But Thornton has been banged up, and has caught only 7 passes in 4 games. UT needs Thornton the step up even more than before following the season-ending injury to Bru McCoy.

Squirrel White hasn’t found the end zone yet, which has kept Vols fans from picking up a free “day after TD” 6-pack of soda from a Knoxville area convenience store (gotta love NIL!). But White still leads the Vols in catches (26) and receiving yards (276).

Tight ends Jacob Warren and McCallan Castle are contributing in the passing game too, with 7 catches apiece and a combined 3 TDs. But this teams misses Swiss army knife Princeton Fant, who was a matchup nightmare for opponents, no matter where Josh Heupel asked him to play.

Tennessee’s run game? Well, there’s not much reason for complaint in that category. The Vols are 4th in the country after 5 weeks, averaging 231.2 yards per game. Jaylen Wright, Jabari Small and Dylan Sampson are seemingly interchangeable, combining for an even 1,000 rushing yards and 9 scores.

Defensively the Vols are continuing to show improvement. Ranked 25th in the nation in total defense after Week 5, this is a group that has shown that it can create havoc in the opposing backfield. They led the country in sacks with 22 and were 5th in tackles for loss with 9.4 per game.

LB Aaron Beasley was supposed to be the leader of this defense and has done just that. Beasley is tops on the Vols with 33 tackles and 8.5 tackles for loss, plus 2 sacks. But the breakout player is James Pearce Jr., a one-man wrecking crew. Pearce has 7 tackles for loss and a team leading 5 sacks. It’s hard to find a better edge rusher in the FBS these days.

Kamal Hadden’s memorable pick-6 against South Carolina notwithstanding, Tennessee’s defense is average when it comes to forcing turnovers. They have only recovered 2 fumbles and collected 4 INTs. Those 6 turnovers put them in a tie for 76th in the country in turnovers gained.

On special teams, punter Jackson Ross has bounced back from a shaky debut against Virginia, now averaging 42 yards per punt, with 8 of his 21 efforts landing inside the opponent’s 20. Place kicker Charles Campbell has made 7 of his 8 FG attempts, with his only miss coming from 50+ yards. Josh Turbyville has earned touchbacks on 27 of his 34 kickoffs, but 4 of those landed out of bounds, something that gives coaches more even more gray hairs.

In the next few weeks, we will learn a lot more about the 2023 Vols. Home to Texas A&M, road trips to Alabama and Kentucky … that’s a much more difficult stretch of games than they’ve faced to this point.

The 2022 Tennessee Volunteers were a historically good group that has cast a shadow over this year’s team.

Will the 2023 Vols write their own positive legacy?