After the 37-20 loss to Florida, running back Rajion Neal was at a loss for words.
“Honestly, I am not sure what went on,” Neal said. “You can sense it once Florida went up a little and stuff starting to get out of rhythm,” Neal said. “I can’t really put it into words what really happened.”
After a week’s worth of hype and excitement, things went horribly wrong for the Vols in a mere 30 minutes.
Things were going well for Tennessee heading into the half. Everything looked good.
Tennessee was leading 14-10 at halftime, Tyler Bray had had two touchdown passes and Florida’s only touchdown was set up by a Bray interception that gave the Gators excellent field position. Things were great in Neyland.
But as the third quarter wore on something happened to the Vols. They crumbled under the pressure.
“I feel that the guys got caught up in their emotions when Florida took the lead and started making the big plays,” said Neal. “You could say that (the) guys felt a little more pressure, including myself.”
Tennessee had just orchestrated a 12 play, 81-yard drive to take a 20-13 lead and the offense was clicking. Then when the Volunteers stopped Florida on a fake punt attempt to get the ball back on Florida’s 47-yard line, it looked like the Vols were going to deliver a blow that would knock the Gators out. But the exact opposite ended up happening.
The Vols went three-and-out and gave the Gators the ball back on their own 20-yard line, and on the first play Trey Burton dashed through the line and went 80 yards to tie the game.
It was a terrible play for Tennessee. No one covered seemed to have read the play right, even though everyone would have said it was going to be a running play. No one was there to meet Burton in the hole, and to make matters worse, defensive back Marsalis Teague took one of the worst angles possible to try and make the tackle.
“It was a shock,” head coach Derek Dooley said. “Nobody recognized it. We weren’t able to route. It was just a bad play. I don’t know how else to say it. …I don’t know. … It wasn’t a bad play. It was a bad fit.”
That signaled the beginning of the end for UT, as Florida went on to score 24 unanswered points.
After outgaining Florida 220-176 in the first half, the Tennessee offense completely disappeared.
Bray was a horrendous 9-for-21 in the second half for 104 yards and a costly interception.
“We just have to make plays when it comes down to crunch time,” Bray said. “The big guys have to step up more than we did tonight.”
That was the understatement of the night.
From the time Tennessee gave the ball back to Florida at the 3:15 mark in the third quarter, Florida outgained the Vols 302-35.
The most disappointing part is that the team crumbled when they needed to respond. Things weren’t even really that bad.
The game was still tied and the crowd of 102,455 was still thinking that the Volunteers were going to pull it out. But the team buckled.
“I think it was a feeling of being overwhelmed,” linebacker Jacques Smith said. “It was not that we did not know what was going on or that we did not know what they were doing. It was kind of playing our ball; we got out of our game. Once the hot hand got away from us, we could not get it back.”
The Vols fell apart under the lights of the national stage. Knoxville’s hopes of returning to former prominence were smashed by the Gators en route to their eighth-straight win against Tennessee. But it’s a long season, and many more games have yet to be played.
Since Dooley has been here, the Vols haven’t been able to respond when they get hit in the mouth and nothing changed last night, but they insist things are different this season.
“I feel like this team is totally different and we are not someone to push around,” said Smith.
After a major disappointment, it is time for the Vols to prove Smith’s words with the remainder of the season.
