I saw some discussions online saying that if Tennessee won tonight it could go a long way toward locking in a #1 seed in March. Unfortunately I think this bad of a loss could be what causes the team to slip down a seed regardless of where they finish. Fortunately the schedule should allow UT to be 5-1 in conference, 18-1 overall, and possibly back in the Top 3 when they travel to Auburn.  If they can right the ship before going to Texas on Saturday.

4-28 FG
0-14 3P FG
Losing every 50/50 ball
Outrebounded 24-16
Points in the paint 24-6
No adjustments


I wasn?t expecting a win, especially with Florida coming off a loss to Kentucky (who is losing by 13 at the half to UGA) but this is worse than the first half of the CFP game vs Ohio State.
I guess it can only get better in the 2H.

With this close loss, I wonder if the CFP committee takes some creative liberty with the final rankings. If the 5-12 seeds end as

ND
Texas
OSU
PSU
UT
Clemson
SMU
Indiana

The first round matchups would be:
ND vs Indiana
Texas vs SMU
OSU vs Clemson
PSU vs UT

You would be hard pressed to get more ready made drama/story lines than those games.

Not that I want any player to be injured, but it would be interesting to see if any teams ahead of us that play next week drop more than usual if they lose their QB to injury, similar to FSU last year. Unfortunately that might be our only chance to host a game.

UGA loses on the road to Ole Miss as a 1.5 favorite and drops from 3 to 12
Bama loses on the road as a 10 point favorite to OK and falls from 7 to 13
Ohio St loses at HOME as a 21 point favorite to Michigan and falls 2 to 6🤦‍♂️
Was hopeful the committee would be consistent but not surprised.
Hopefully the team uses the snub for motivation

I believe that free kick that was punted was a live ball. If it bounces the other direction it would have been an easy recovery for Vandy. Is that the correct interpretation?

The box score online says ZZ has 9 turnovers at the half. I remember multiple bad decisions, but 9?!? Surely some of those should have been given to other players.

Since UT deferred to the second half?.should we elect to kick instead?

Mertz has been ruled out for the rest of the game

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.