Tennessee falls at Florida

Tennessee is now 2-1 and their misery in Gainesville continues as the Vols fell to the Gators 29-16. We look back on the Vols disappointing defeat with The Day After.

Hot and Not

HOT

The start — It wasn’t a perfect start as Florida drove the field into scoring position, but Tennessee got a finger on the attempt forcing a miss, then the Vol offense was perfect as Joe Milton was 4 for 4 for 69 yards on a 71 yard drive that ended in a beautiful touchdown to Ramel Keyton. It looked easy, but it wasn’t the rest of the night.

“Just gotta keep executing, man. As an offense, you just gotta keep going no matter what,” Milton said. “When you can score that easily … you just can’t ride the wave. You gotta be able to execute and attack.”

Second half defense — After having no answers in the first half as Tennessee’s defense gave up touchdowns on 4 consecutive possessions, the defense in the second half was really good. Florida gained just 83 yards in the second half as the Vols forced two 3 and outs to start the third quarter giving the offense a chance to get back into the game.

Bru McCoy — McCoy said in his post game radio interview that he left a lot of plays out there and has to be better noting a slant that he failed to catch (really good play by the defensive back) in the third quarter. McCoy finished the night with 94 yards receiving on 5 catches. He had a 55 yard touchdown catch and he had 30 yards of offense after his catches. Two years ago after falling to the Gators, Tennessee decided to force the ball to Cedric Tillman and make him the focal point of the passing game. You kind of wonder if that’s not the direction they go as the offense searches for more production.

NOT

3rd down defense — Tennessee had no first half answers on third down. The Gators were 7 of 8 on third down in the first 30 minutes.

Quarterback Graham Mertz was 5 for 5 on 3rd down with 4 of the 5 completions resulting in a first down. He also had 2 rushes on third down. One resulted in a first down, the other a touchdown. Mertz and the Gator offense torched the Vols on possession downs.

“Didn’t get off the field. Had been some third and long situations. Applied some pressure to the quarterback. We didn’t match out on some things. Yeah, we gotta be better. Gotta get off the field,” head coach Josh Heupel said.

The line of scrimmage — In the second half, Tennessee’s defensive front played much better as did the linebackers and safeties, but in the first half, Florida’s offensive line stymied Tennessee’s front and their offensive plan confused the linebackers.

The story and concern moving forward offensively is the offensive line. Florida came in with only one sack on the year. They only had one Saturday night, but the forced three holding penalties and had Milton scrambling around for much of the night. The noise affected communication and caused some confusion as well.

Tennessee needs to get Cooper Mays healthy

Penalties — I will always say that the officiating at times is maddening, but this team has to improve their discipline in a hurry. Against Austin-Peay, Tennessee was flagged 10 times for 88 yards.

Saturday night, Tennessee killed themselves with penalties as they were flagged 10 times for 79 yards. Four of the 10 were offensive penalties on first down putting the offense behind the sticks. Florida’s offense also made 3 first downs off of Tennessee defensive penalties.

Defining moments

Trevor Etienne’s 62 yard run — Tennessee had a bad run fit a week ago that cost them 42 yards. They had another one Saturday night and then poor tackling turned a big play into a 62 yard touchdown run. Florida’s jet sweep motion gave Tennessee’s linebackers fits in the first half as the Gators ran for 135 yards in the first half. The defense corrected the problem at half time as Florida ran for just 48 yards in the second half.

Mertz to Jackson for 18 yards— Leading 7-6, Tennessee had a chance to get off the field. They had Florida in a 3rd and 12, but Mertz escaped pressure and hit Kahleil Jackson on an 18 yard sideline pass. Florida scored 7 plays later for their the lead they never gave up.

Milton’s first interception as a Vol — Maybe Joe Milton should have eaten the ball, but his protection failed him and he was hit as he threw causing the ball to flutter into the arms of Devin Moore who returned it inside the Tennessee 20. It appeared that Milton had Squirrel White breaking open for a bit play.

Joe Milton’s start — After a slow start a week ago against Austin-Peay where Milton was 1 for 7 for 11 yards, the senior playing in his home state was perfect to start. Milton went 4 for 4 for 69 yards and gave Tennessee a 7-0 lead.

Inside the numbers

2nd qtr. — Florida dominated Tennessee in the second quarter outscoring Tennessee 20-0. They ran for 122 yards and passed for 72. They had 8 first downs. Tennessee had 1 first down, 27 yards rushing and 3 yards passing.

0 —Tennessee was 0-3 on fourth down tries after going 0-1 against Austin-Peay, Tennessee has failed to make 4th and 1 three times in six tries this season.

26 —Number of points given up by Tim Banks defense in the first half. It’s the second highest total given up after they gave up 35 at South Carolina last year.

0 — Number of wins in Heupel’s head coaching career when his team scores less than 30 points.

Gameball

I don’t know that anyone deserves a game ball. The defense was definitely better in the second half and gave the offense a chance. McCoy had a nice game, but it just feels so hard on offense right now for Tennessee.

So I’m going to pass on a game ball this week.

Biggest question/concern moving forward

Tennessee needs to score more points. They have to get better in a hurry up front on the offensive line. They certainly need Mays back and they have to play better at tackle especially right tackle.

I actually thought Milton played pretty well. He missed a couple of deep balls but overall Milton was much improved from a week ago.

Tennessee’s tackling which was really good in week one has regressed the last two weeks. That has to improve immediately.

They also have to clean up the penalty issues as well. Josh Heupel’s teams have always been pretty heavily penalized but you can’t have 10 flags a game as they have the last two weeks.

But the biggest question is how does this team respond to the early season loss? How does the leadership on this team handle that when all the pre-season talk was about going to Atlanta.

“Only people who find that out is us,” quarterback Joe Milton said. “We’ll find out. We’ll find that out within the team. Starting tomorrow. Really starting tonight on a plane. But really tomorrow morning, we get in there, we watch (the film) and go back Monday. You go execute and get ready for the following week. Can’t go back and change anything that happened in this game right here.”

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