Josh Heupel and Tennessee football were staring into the abyss midway through the third quarter on Saturday night at Neyland Stadium. Trailing 10-0 with a lifeless offense, the Vols looked destined for another disappointing loss against Florida with a once promising season slipping away.
But with its season on the line, Tennessee went 75 yards on 11 plays for its first points since the third quarter a week ago at Arkansas. A third-and-19, back-breaking touchdown kept Tennessee from putting Florida away in regulation. But the Vols averted another disastrous and gut wrenching loss against the Gators with a 23-17 overtime win.
There was a lot to criticize, mostly from the offense, in the Vols’ win. Tennessee’s offense had more life than it did a week ago at Arkansas but the results weren’t much better. They scored just 17 points in regulation and 10 of those points came with great field position.
Tennessee barely totaled 300 yards and failed to pass for 200 yards in its third straight SEC game. The Vols seemed closer to creating positive offensive outcomes but missed throws, dropped passes and pass protection breakdowns kept things from clicking.
“It’s guys open, we don’t hit it,” Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said. “Guys open, we’re getting pressured. It’s everybody taking their turn and at some point we got to say we’re going to man up and do our job and make this thing go the way that it’s capable of.”
But as poorly as Tennessee played offensively, they found a way to win. And the Vols have earned far too few victories over Florida, now three in the last 20 years, to complain about how they get them.
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That’s the irony in all of it, Tennessee’s win over Florida was very similar to how the Gators have earned a number of victories over the Vols in the last two decades. Billy Napier and the Gators are to blame for a lot of that. Florida fumbled on the one-yard line, turned it over on downs in scoring range and completely mismanaged the clock to end the first half.
But Tennessee capitalized on it. The Vols defense took advantage of mistakes and put pressure on Florida’s quarterbacks. When they gave up the 27-yard game tying touchdown, they could have folded. Instead, they bowed up and pushed Florida back on its overtime possession leading to Trey Smack missing a 47-yard field goal wide right.
“They’re confident, yeah,” Heupel said of the defense. “But I don’t ever feel like they just think it’s going happen, you know what I mean? Like they understand that they got to go make it happen. And they trust one another. There are things we got to clean up. But they trust one another, compete really hard and continue to play better, smarter football.”
Tennessee’s offense needs to improve an awful lot if the Vols are going to reach their goals this season. But here’s the positive, every opponent remaining on Tennessee’s schedule has quite a bit of flaws and that includes the Alabama team that comes to Knoxville next week.
And since the Vols survived a scare against Florida that so many other Tennessee teams would have stumbled on, their goals are still out in front of them.
2 Responses
I need to see some “fire”, the confidence is there with Nico, but does he have that emotional fire in his gut to in still confidence from his teammates? He shoulder’s the responsibility of his mistakes, and has all the tools to become great. So did Joe Milton 3rd. This team will go as far as Nico takes them. The defense is present this year to win some big games, and has done so, but Nico has to make plays AND feed the team some fire that demonstrates he’s all in. Staying calm is great. Going to the next play is also, but Nico’s got to lead with some emotional fire the team knows is in his gut. Everything else is there.
I agree 100%!!! A win against Florida is worth a lot—since we have had very few in the last 20 years. Something has happened to the offense since the first half of the Oklahoma game. Maybe they have put a short leash on Nico, and don’t trust him fully. Understandable–he is a freshman with little experience in the toughest league of college football. At the start of the season I did not expect UT to be better that 8-4, considering the schedule and the young QB.
This year the defense has made the difference. We will see if the offense can improve as the season progresses.