Overall
Daniel: I based my grade on what I was expecting coming in. I thought Georgia would win by two scores and UT exceeded my expectations. This team is developing and is, frankly, ahead of where I thought it would be at this point in the season. That doesn’t take the sting of defeat out for everybody involved at Tennessee, but the Vols are morphing into a dangerous young team that has a great chance to get six or seven wins this season. They have to avoid catastrophic mistakes if they’re going to win games like this. But I thought, overall, Tennessee did a good job in Athens. It sets up a huge matchup against Florida this coming week – a game the Vols really need after coming up just short on Saturday. Grade: B
Houston: This team doesn’t quit and they don’t start feeling sorry for themselves when bad things happen. They made some mistakes in this one that can be easily corrected moving forward, and will ultimately be better after this one. It’s tough to lose a game like this one, but the signs are there that this team is closer than they’ve been in years to turning the corner and being a competitor in this league. They are gelling at the right time and they should get some players back healthy this week that should make them even better moving forward. If this team can cut out the mistakes then they can have a big impact on the SEC the rest of the way, but the mistakes cost them a road win against a divisional foe yesterday. Grade: B-
Reed: I thought Tennessee would battle Georgia til the end of this one but they played even better than I expected. They held Georgia under their season averages in multiple areas and the Vols exceeded many of their season averages offensively. Tennessee is clearly improving. When the game started to get away from them, they battled back. They shot themselves in the foot one too many times to win – which is to be expected of a young team on the road. Solid effort and execution otherwise and a performance which, if replicated, should be good enough to down the Gators Saturday. Grade: B
