Outside of Bama and Florida, there's one team in the SEC that I want to beat badly year in and year out and that's Georgia. I've endured a lot of Georgia fans over the years who seem to be unhappy in winning and unhappy in losing, so I'd honestly rather see them unhappy for losing. So, this week's game was one of those big rivalry games for me, one I had hoped that maybe our team might break out of the funk and really put some things together.
And we showed glimmers of doing that. Say what you will, I think Nick Stephens is the right choice at quarterback for UT. He seems to have a better grasp of the offense than Jonathan Crompton did and he has the ability to make some long plays and stretch the field. The problem comes in the fact that we're not getting a lot of yards on first and second down. In a game where we rushed for one yard...quite frankly, that's not going to get it done. Watching today, I saw fits of inspiration on the offensive line but also a lot of futility and moments that had me tearing out my hair. And I still don't understand why Creer is riding the bench. What did he do to annoy the coaches so? Or what does Arian Foster have on the coaching staff?
Our defense continues to show a spark, but they were left out there too long. Eric Berry continues to make plays and while we do have some big plays other places, we also have some boneheaded plays that continue drives for the other team. A couple of personal fouls go against us for boneheaded plays and we could easily have been in there, made the came tighter and made Georgia worry a bit more. I don't doubt some fans had their doubts in the game, esp. when the Vols put things together on their two big drives. But the bad part was that as soon as we had a momentum changing drive, Georgia would answer back and take all of it back. And a big part of that is bonehead plays such as personal fouls that allow drives to continue or playing soft on third and long from inside their own ten.
And we're still winless in the SEC, which is just beyond depressing.
I think what we see here is how last year wasn't just about our playing well but also luck. We had some good bounces and we jumped on them. Those aren't breaking our way this year and the results show in the win/loss column. I don't intend this an an excuse or a pass for the team--they have enough talent that they shouldn't have to rely on luck all the time.
Oh well..there's always next week, though Mississippi State showed today they're not going to be a cakewalk. t
Labels: tennessee football
posted by Michael Hickerson at 10/11/2008 06:11:00 PM |
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