The defense that couldn't tackle, tackled. The team that couldn't run, ran. The team that couldn't stop the run limited Georgia to two first downs in two quarters of football. The coach who was close to being nudged out ran circles around the coach who was supposedly unbeatable on the road. Saturday's theme was redemption and, unfortunately, she was clad almost entirely in Big Orange.The Vols have picked up a lot of criticism over the past few years as unmotivated, undisciplined, and poorly coached. At crucial times, this reputation proved true. The counterargument to that reputation might as well be the first two quarters of Saturday's game. Tennessee looked unstoppable in the first half. Arian Foster was Roger Craig, running downhill, all knees and elbows, refusing to submit to Georgia's version of tackling, which was all hugging and cuddling. Because Foster was gashing us up front, Erik Ainge didn't feel any pressure and completed passes seemingly at will. David Cutcliff took advantage of Georgia's young, fast defense by running counters, cutbacks, and a masterful trick play keying off the fact that our defense is so eager to pursue that we lose discipline quickly. The result was the worst half of football that Georgia has played since Ronny Daniels made us publicly and shamefully cuss our own players in 1999.
First, the bad. Our defense looked soft as a fat baby's cheek. For the third time this year, we couldn't stop basic inside and off tackle runs. When our D-line did stop up a hole, Foster easily cut back for big gains. There are times when we absolutely cannot get off a block. And we evidently prefer to nudge rather than tackle. On offense, our line looked like we were playing a bunch of freshmen. The old adage is that you can count on a loss for every freshman lineman you play. We have one more loss coming, at least. And that was against the 110th ranked defense in the country. Look, there are a lot of things to write about here, a blocked punt (off another missed block against UT by Lumpkin), penalties, etc. Frankly, you guys are going to write about the bad in the comments, so I'll let you do your work.
The good? Demiko Goodman made a hell of a catch and Tripp Chandler caught everything thrown his way. Anything else? No, everything else was bad to average.
So where do we stand? We're a better team than what we played like Saturday, but there are some disturbing truths about the Dawgs. We are now 1-6 in our last seven games against SEC East opponents. Atlanta is now all but impossible. In fact, we should stop even thinking about SEC championships for the foreseeable future. As Richt said, we have to focus on beating Vanderbilt. We still lack a bankable win over a legitimate opponent. We don't do anything consistently well. The good news is that every game remaining on the schedule is winnable (it's true). The bad news, if we play like we did Saturday, every game is also eminently losable.
Quinton
