It will be interesting to see how Aidoo responds to today?s performance, which was a carbon copy of pretty much anytime he played a physical big this year. Will he hit the portal for an easier situation with potentially more money, or will he stay and dedicate himself in the offseason to getting stronger and, more importantly, playing stronger?

Just as importantly, since the 3 point shot has only been around about 40 years, this type of game only happens about once or twice every tournament between all 63 games. It was truly a historically bad shooting performance. Surely it couldn?t happen to Tennessee twice in one tournament!

It was disappointing. I would say the team was tired after the quick turnaround from Saturday, but South Carolina played at Mizzouri on the road and won, so that?s not a valid reason. Sure wish Barnes would play Estrella more. Aidoo has weak hands and plays scared on offense against any opponent that is evenly matched or better.  A potential silver lining would be if this somehow motivates the team and they get it together and beat UK on Saturday.

Agreed. They waited too long to turn it on and could never get all the way back in the game. Aidoo plays weak against any opponent of equal or greater strength, I?d imagine Awaka must beat him up in practice a good bit if they go against each other. Gainey is really struggling. I would sit him for an entire game to try and see if that makes a difference. Good to see Knecht play up to his potential.

So one year from now 12 teams will be chosen for the playoffs. I?m guessing 5 conference champs (Power 4 + 1) and 7 at large bids. Assuming UT isn?t playing in the SEC Championship game, to solidify a spot in the playoff UT would have to finish in the top 10 of the final regular season rankings. To do that at least one win over Oklahoma/Bama/UGA would be needed, along with winning the rest of the games on the schedule. This year a 10-2 regular season would have been right on the borderline of making a 12 team playoff, but next year I think that will be a more impressive record, especially in the SEC, because of the tougher conference opponents.  If needs are filled in the portal and Nico keeps improving and doesn?t get injured I think it?s possible. On a related note, after seeing how FSU got shafted today, it makes me think that the same thing could have very well happened to UT last year if they had won at South Carolina.

So if FSU wins something unprecedented will happen. Either an undefeated Power 5 conference champion will get left out, or the team ranked #1 going into the conference championship weekend will be left out. And I guess the SEC could be left out all together if FSU is in along with Texas. Bring on the chaos!

Sure looked like an obvious pick by Bowers on the TD pass. Is that type of contact allowed in that situation?

I?ll take that onside kick to start the 2nd half. Even something like a pooch to an open area of the field, or a line drive kick right at a UGA player. There is literally nothing to loose. UGA is the best in the country at making adjustments, and based on how both teams have played in this situation this year I?m afraid UGA will do what they want in the 2H. Empty the playbook!

If we don?t try a fake punt at some point today I will be severely disappointed.

I wish our linemen would jump to knock down the pass after 3 seconds of being held.

Usually the lines are pretty close to the difference in Sagarin ratings after an adjustment for home field advantage (≈3 points). Going into today UT?s rating was 86.08 and Texas A&M was 85.26. Add 3 points to UT for home field advantage and the difference is almost spot on to the 3.5 game spread.
Alabama?s rating before today?s game was 92.03. Add 3 points for home field and you get a difference of ≈ 9 points. I would have to say Alabama has played a better schedule and has looked more complete so far this year, and they have the revenge factor, so I would expect the line to come out at 10. We?ll see. Hopefully Heupel will have some tricks up his sleeve for next week. Thought we would see some today after the bye week. Maybe being a big underdog and fewer expectations will help Joe?s performance. It can?t hurt.

Not as furious as I was when it was 4th and 2 and he tried to run for it when he had no chance instead of throwing it to someone. He had a month to get ready for Clemson and had Hooker helping him at practice. That was peak Joe Milton. He also had better receivers and protection for that game. What we saw today was after a bye week. I?m afraid it?s going to be rough going forward unless considerable changes to philosophy and personnel are made.
I would put the responsibility on the regression on the passing game as follows:

Milton 55%
Receivers 25%
Offensive Line 20%

And there is probably an argument that some percentage should also be attributed to the change in OC.

I?ll enjoy this win tonight.
But, Milton just isn?t going to play at the level needed to compete in most of the rest of the games on the schedule, and the WRs  aren?t helping. Every UT fan knows this. So let?s  further embrace a running identity. The were more QB runs today, let?s see twice as many next week. The one option looked good today, let?s see one per quarter next week. Regular downfield passes aren?t working. So?. more shovel passes, more passes out of the backfield to the RBs. Maybe bring back the quick throw to the boundary if the WRs can figure out how to block it. And more trick plays. And, I would put in a package for Nico. 3-4 plays he feels comfortable with. I?m expecting UT to be a double digit underdog next week, so let it all hang out.

In a rematch UT won’t have 8 pre snap penalties on a neutral field. Also unlikely that Hooker misses all 4 of his big throws down the field while Stetson puts 2 in tight windows for touchdowns/big gains. I’m not saying we would be favored to win, but I think the level of play would be a lot higher than today.

Tennessee will be no worse than 5 in the new playoff rankings. 1 team ahead us will be guaranteed to lose, and if TCU is 4th they will have a 90% chance of losing at least 1 game. If we finish the season with 3 decisive victories it will likely mean a rematch vs UGA in the 1 vs 4 playoff game.

I see a lot of people saying they would have kicked the 42 yard field goal on that 4th down instead of going for it. While I’m as skeptical as anyone about the staff, and think HB should have been getting the bulk of the snaps for multiple games now, I can live with the decision to forgo the FG attempt. I’m not sure UT had been in Ark territory in the 2H before that possession, the WR was open and HB made a good enough throw, but the refs missed an obvious PI. If that penalty is correctly called who knows what happens next. The calls and bounces just didn’t go UT’s way tonight. That doesn’t excuse the lack of 2H adjustments (for the 4th game in a row) it just makes it that much difficult to win the game.

Right, the clock was supposed to be rest to 1.4 seconds. But it never was, at least what was shown on tv. It was like the scoreboard operator just ignored the instructions from the refs.

What did I miss? The refs stopped play to review everything, signaled “1.4” to the clock operator, and the announcers said the clock would be reset to 1.4 seconds. Not sure if it would have made a difference, but after all that and it wasn’t done, and nobody said anything about it. Strange.

By my count UGA had 4 fumbles, all of which they recovered and threw 2 picks, one UT dropped and the other was nullified by a penalty. And then UT fumbles once and loses it. So that’s 7 plays with a potential turnover. If you figure each play is 50/50, the odds of ALL 7 going for UGA are 128 to 1. That’s how cursed we are. One the plus side, I think the overall effort was better, and maybe with a week off before Auburn that game will be respectable too.

Kick off to open the second half instead of receive? I know hindsight is 20/20, but it was pretty clear before that 2H kickoff that UT was going to be at a disadvantage trying to return it.

2016 UGA didn't feel like tonight to me. Despite the deficit never being more than a 14 points it seemed like it would take a miracle to win because we had no answer for the GT rushing attack. The UGA game last year, and even in 2015 when UT was down big in the 1H, seemed like games where a win was still possible, not miraculous. To me anyway.

So I guess Paul Bain blocking the game winning field goal, and getting the W despite giving up 535 yards rushing, a UT historical worst, qualifies as a miracle.
What's the last UT win that qualifies as an equal or greater miracle?
Two that come to mind for are LSU in 2005 and Notre Dame in 1991.

Thanks.
Unfortunately we'd have no such luck and nothing was any different on that first drive, offense or defense.
Just think how bad this would be if we didn't have all summer to prepare.
This is the most disappointed I've been in a long time.
We need a miracle at this point.

Even if we don't recover, the way GT is moving the ball if the defense would be on the field for a shorter amount of time (they've got to be getting tired) and there would be more game time left to work with.
What do you think?

I'll take it