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.
