What the Vols’ star player is accomplishing offensively during his breakthrough season

James Pearce Jr. started his sophomore season on a tear, but has just one sack over the past four games as opponents try to limit his impact.

James Pearce Jr. began the 2023 season on a tear for Tennessee’s defense, and while it hasn’t entirely stopped in recent weeks, the star sophomore for the Vols is finding the going a little tougher as opposing offenses make more concerted efforts to take him away. Pearce still ranks among the SEC’s leaders in sacks and pressures, but he has just one sack over the past four games as Tennessee’s defense has struggled without its defensive line dominating. With more attention he’s getting from opponents, Pearce has had to elevate his own game in different ways.

Going into Saturday’s regular-season finale against Vanderbilt, Pearce is second in the SEC with eight sacks and is tied for fifth in the conference in tackles for loss (11.5), and according to Pro Football Focus his 43 quarterback pressures (10 sacks, eight hits and 24 hurries) are third-most in the SEC and one off the league lead shared by Alabama’s Chris Braswell and Florida’s Princely Umanmielen.

Through seven games this season, Pearce had seven sacks, including two apiece against Virginia and South Carolina, and he was credited with five quarterback hurries against Texas A&M and had a sack/fumble at Alabama, so naturally he started to get what teammate Omari Thomas described as “a lot of attention” from teams trying to slow him down.

“The way James has been playing all year is causing a lot of buzz for him,” the senior defensive tackle said after Tuesday’s practice, “so teams are doing everything in their will to play him out of the game, but I feel like that’s where other players have to continue to step up and make more plays as well just from me, everybody – like literally everybody’s just got to continue to play better. That’s James as well, so we’ve all just got to continue to grow.”

Pearce has hardly been invisible over Tennessee’s past four games. He had two hurries and a pass breakup against Kentucky, and one of his pressures against Connecticut led to a pick-six because of a hurried throw. Pearce added his eighth sack against Missouri, leaving him two short of becoming the first Tennessee player with double-digit sacks in a season since Derek Barnett in 2016.

However, he terrorized both South Carolina and Texas A&M, racking up 17 total quarterback pressures in those two games, according to Pro Football Focus. He has just 11 in the five games since after he had 32 in the first six games. Some of it has been tougher matchups (Alabama’s JC Latham) or better offensive lines (Georgia and Missouri), but teams have chipped him with running backs – Cody Schrader opted for a punch to the midsection – and lined up tight ends to his side to make his life more difficult.

Pearce isn’t alone as Tennessee as a defense had one sack in three of the past four games, its torrid pace from early in the season slowing. “Obviously, that’s part of it,” said defensive line coach Rodney Garner.

“We have to strain harder. Quick game, we have to do a better job of getting our hands up. We have to get push. You’re going to get chipped. Pre-snap you have to see things. We just have to strain better, we just have to finish and we have to be technical and fundamentally sound.

“We just can’t go out there and start to freelance, start to stress. Some things are not going right, now you feel like, ‘Hey, I can abort everything that I’ve been taught, everything I’m teaching to try to go make a play and not do it inside the scheme.’ Now, you end up giving up a big play. We just have to be more attention-to-detail, stress and strain. I have to coach them better, teach them better and we all have to do better.”

Thomas credited Pearce for responding to his situation with more work and determination rather than frustration, and the impressive 6-foot-5, 242-pounder could reap the rewards on Saturday against a Vanderbilt offense that struggles in pass protection.

“James, he’s been handling it pretty good,” Thomas said. “You see James, especially once he started playing better, it’s like he got into the facility way more, just because he noticed teams started focusing on him more. So he took his game, not necessarily on the field, but he took his game mentally, the preparation piece of it, he took it way more seriously just based off of the season he was having.

“I feel like that’s something that he’s going to continue to do because he knows the player he can be. And James is the type of guy, like when he wants to do something, he’s going to do it. I feel like he’s just going to continue to grow and he’s going to put his mind to it and do everything that he needs to do.”