Sunday Morning Comes: Tennessee

It is never easy...

I'm still torn about Georgia's play. Was it uninspired? Was it lackadaisical? Did we just happen to face a Tennessee that brought their 'A' game and that is why we struggled to put them away? I have a different theory: absent another special performance à la the Clemson game, this is what we are going to see from our football team. I'll have more about our passing game and defense, but we'll continue to scrape by teams because of those issues.

• Todd Gurley is a damn man. That is all.
• Give Mason props for a couple of nice down field blocks, including taking on a streaking LB. No one should doubt his desire to win.
• I was surprised at how we struggled with a a young Tennessee offensive line. I believe Pruitt thought (like all of us, I suppose) that he'd get a decent pass rush with bringing three or four. We were wrong.
• That being said, our pass rush kept Tennessee from winning the game. I am convinced of that. There was a time in the third quarter when I haz crayon Bobo decided to throw the ball some, just because. That rush kept Tennessee's QB from getting comfortable.
• The offensive line did ok at times, but their penalties killed us.
• On the flip side, I thought our defensive front did great against their run offense...on inside runs. They ate our lunch on the edge.
• Expect another 'yeah we messed up, but so what' letter from the SEC regarding the non-fumble.
• I'll get to Mason later today, but I have to think he is having issues with his arm. I don't recall him being able to hurt guys with his throws, but he didn't throw anything with zip on it yesterday. And the second interception, he under threw Conley by at least three yards. He gets that ball in front of him, Conley scores.
• I'm not sure if we ever go back to prevent defense. Tennessee scored two TDs on 14 plays for 141 yards in 3:01 against prevent.
• While I'm down on our pass coverage, generally, we look much improved in separating the ball from receivers that have gotten their hands on the ball. I can think of at least three passes that Worley/Peterlman got to receivers that we knocked out of the receivers' hands. As long as we struggle in coverage, that will continue to be huge for us.
• Oh. Special teams, especially punt coverage. Dude.

Looking over the stats, it is hard to say Tennessee did anything different than they've done in other games. They had the same passing % and yards per pass they did against Arkansas State. The biggest difference between our game and their loss to Oklahoma were long passing plays. The Vols completed 8 more passes on the same number of attempts against Georgia. That is the difference between domination and a skin of your teeth win.
TD

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