Tennessee D takes the night off
All day Saturday, people asked me who I thought would win the Tennessee-Georgia game. The line was 9.5 points.
I said I thought Georgia would cover.
It did.
Georgia did more than that. Yes, Georgia covered, but it also demonstrated that Tennessee still isn’t ready for prime time. When the lights where brightest and the stakes were the highest, Tennessee folded like laundry. Georgia’s quarterback Carson Beck struggled the week before against Ole Miss. Its top running back, Trevor Etienne, was out of the lineup. Georgia’s offensive line was so porous against Ole Miss, one could have strained spaghetti noodles with it.
This was a prime opportunity for Tennessee to showcase itself as one of the elite college programs.
Instead, we learned that Tennessee wasn’t ready to emerge as a contender.
Yes, the Vols got off to a good start and took a 10-0 lead. Once Georgia bled out its adrenaline, it got in a rhythm and slowly took over the game. The stumbling, bumbling Bulldogs of last week emerged Saturday as an unflappable team that did what it wanted to do against the Vols’ allegedly stellar defense.
I think Tennessee coach Josh Heupel has sent out a search party to look for the supposedly dominant Vol defense.
For the eighth straight time, Georgia has bested Tennessee. This is not a rivalry, not when you lose eight straight to an opponent.
This is par for the course. Tennessee is not a good SEC road team. Go back to Heupel’s first year. The Vols had a shot at winning the SEC East but was blown out by South Carolina in Columbia. Last year, Tennessee folded against a weak, struggling Florida team in Gainesville. This year, the Vols suffered a loss at average Arkansas and tonight bowed to an injury-riddled Georgia team with numerous offensive questions.
Georgia found its defense and rallied to take the lead. Carson Beck looked like Tom Brady the way he directed this offense. The Bulldogs didn’t turn the ball over, made the big plays and, as Gen. Neyland suggested long ago, when the breaks went against them, they put on more steam.
Tennessee had bad penalties at inopportune times. Vol quarterback Nico Iamaleava is still inconsistent when throwing the deep ball. And when he did make a nice completion, it was called back because of a penalty.
Okay, let’s be honest, Tennessee wasn’t just horrible. It did a lot of good things…just not enough of them. Tennessee moved effectively on the ground, but when you become a unidimensional team, you rip a lot of pages out of your playbook. The Vols ran well but was very inconsistent through the air.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s line, which had more holes in it than an Iraqi tank against Ole Miss, kept Beck upright for the most part. He could have smoked a cigar, done his homework, then thrown the football as much time as he had. The vaunted Tennessee pass rush was AWOL. I might have suggested to Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks that his unit buy tickets, go through the turnstiles and become spectators. As a result, Beck was able to pick apart the Vol secondary as if UT’s defense wasn’t there. Yes, the defense made a few big plays…just not enough of them. Beck made a few key plays…quite a few of them.
This Georgia offensive line, which looked deficient against Ole Miss, came to life when Tennessee showed up. It seems the Vols have a knack for that kind of thing. They make the mediocre look like All-Americans.
Sadly, the pundits don’t fancy Tennessee. If Tennessee was ranked No 2. and unbeaten, a loss might have dumped it out of the Top 10. With two losses, the pundits all day Saturday were trumpeting that Ole Miss, Georgia and Alabama still have chances to get to the SEC title game. The Vols, who were ranked higher than those three, were not favored to qualify, according to the panelists and talking heads.
Tennessee needs to be doing it better than the other guy to eliminate the doubters. I figured that Georgia would cover the spread tonight. I was right. But I was just going by history, which has a way of repeating.
Tennessee is making progress, though. A year ago, the Vols would have been four-touchdown dogs and navigating through a 7-5 season. I think the Vols can learn from this setback.
Yes, this loss was revealing, but Tennessee is making progress. Just not as fast as people would like.
Jim Steele is a correspondent for Richardson Media Group and can be reached on X @steelesports or via email at pressbox1@gmail.com.
