NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Now that the Tennessee Titans have installed Zach Mettenberger as their quarterback, it seems they have hit the reset button for the 2014 season.

At 2-6 before the bye week, the Titans certainly needed a reboot.

Now, their task is to find out whether Mettenberger can be the quarterback to lead the franchise after having given up on Jake Locker, whose contract expires at the end of the season.

Mettenberger had mixed results in his first start, losing a fumble and throwing an interception, but he also had the first two touchdowns of his career among his 27 completions. The sixth-round pick from LSU finished 27-for-41 for 299 yards passing — the most ever by a Titans’ rookie in a debut.

With the bye week, Mettenberger received additional time to review the film from a Week 8 loss to the Texans and to get a better grasp on the playbook.

“We got a lot of reps in last week. We had a couple of days where we ran a bunch of plays, 60 plus plays in practice, and it’s invaluable,” Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt said. “We got a chance to do some situational work, which is what we needed, to work on third down, works on some red zone things. A lot of times it was even a case of repeating plays, where you get two looks at it, so you get a chance to really get a feel for the play.”

The Titans wanted Mettenberger to receive a start at home before they traveled to Baltimore this week to face the Ravens in the unfriendly confines of M&T Bank Stadium.

“I think certainly it makes him a lot more confident. Certainly we feel better as an organization, as a team with that coming in. Getting the time during the bye week was good, because like I said, we got a lot of plays, he got the majority of those, which is invaluable, and hopefully that’ll help us as we go forward,” Whisenhunt said.

The challenge now for Mettenberger is to advance quickly, because the Ravens pass rush, which sacked Ben Roethlisberger three straight times early in the second quarter, will undoubtedly pin its ears back and come after the rookie, especially if the Titans tepid rushing attack hasn’t improved from the first half of the season.

“I’m sure that’s what a lot of teams will do. I’m sure that’ll be part of his plan. They’re going to do that against us until we can prove we can handle those things, until we make a play to hurt somebody,” Whisenhunt said. “We’ve had opportunities to do that, and we’ve had marginal success with that. Cleveland came after us a few plays, and we had some success. That’s the kind of thing you’ve got to do to keep teams from doing it to you.”

REPORT CARD AFTER EIGHT GAMES

–PASSING OFFENSE: C-minus — Though the Titans have been through three quarterbacks this year — Jake Locker, Charlie Whitehurst and now Zach Mettenbeger – overall, Tennessee’s quarterback play has still been decent. The efforts of the trio could be considered average, but with inconsistent play in a number of other area, the quarterbacks haven’t been able to elevate the play of the offense overall.

–RUSHING OFFENSE: F — The Titans at times don’t seem committed to sticking with the run. Tennessee has employed a four-back rotation of Bishop Sankey, Shonn Greene, Dexter McCluster and Leon Washington, but none of the four have distinguished themselves. In many cases, Titans’ running backs have been pulled from the game before they’ve established a rhythm. As a result, the Titans are averaging barely 100 yards per game.

–PASS DEFENSE: D — While the Titans have 20 sacks through eight games, they only have four from their outside linebackers, where the majority of sacks should come from in a 3-4 scheme. The Titans have given up average of 259.5 passing yards per game and 108 first downs through the air.

–RUSH DEFENSE: D — The Titans have done well at times stopping the run, bottling up Jamaal Charles in the opener, but have been seriously gashed for large chunks of the season. Both DeMarco Murray and Arian Foster ran wild on them, going for more than 150 yards each. Overall, it’s another area where the Titans have been highly mediocre.

–SPECIAL TEAMS: F — Dexter McCluster has not been the weapon the Titans had hoped for on offense or on punt returns. The Titans’ special teams have played better in the past couple of weeks, but they struggled mightily early in the season. The poor play prompted Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt to criticize the unit publicly.

–COACHING: D — The new coaching staff was advertised as a marked improvement over Mike Munchak’s regime, but thus far the results have been worse. Offensively, instability at quarterback in part due to Jake Locker’s injury issues, the poor handling of Locker’s benching, and questionable play calling in close losses to the Browns and Redskins have contributed to the poor start. Defensively, the Titans warned that the switch to a 3-4 would take patience. But there have been some confusing decisions there, as well. Linebacker Akeem Ayers, a former second-round pick, fell out of the rotation at the start of the season. Since being traded to New England last month, Ayers responded with two sacks in two games. Defensive coordinator Ray Horton’s inability to get any production out of Ayers has left Titans’ fans scratching their heads.