Tennessee lost to Arkansas. Now, it’s worth wondering if the season is lost as well, especially based on how UT running back Dylan Sampson described the game.
Sampson said at different times during the post game press conference that the Vols were lackadaisical, antsy and frantic in the 19-14 loss to the Razorbacks on Saturday in Fayetteville, Ark. That’s not a good trio of descriptive terms for anyone, but especially not for a team with hopes of competing for a national championship. Now, the Vols seem like a long shot just to make the 12-team College Football Playoff. Or even win 10 games this season.
“You can’t count anybody out,” Sampson said. “This league is very competitive. You’ve just got to find a way to keep everybody close. You can’t start pulling away from each other…We were a little lackadaisical with that bye week, taking things for granted. I told my team in the locker room, we can’t…just flip a switch on.
“Every time we go out there on the practice field and in the meeting room, we’ve got to have great attention to detail.”
The Vols clearly weren’t prepared on offense as they failed to score a single point in the first half. Sampson said Arkansas ran a 3-3 look for much of the game, which consisted of three defensive linemen, three linebackers and an extra defensive back that often dropped into coverage.
“They didn’t show too much of that much on film,” Sampson said. “They just came out and played hard, with a lot of intensity. They ran good blitzes and stunts on top of us hurting ourselves.”
The Vols were called for 10 penalties for 60 yards, which often times put Tennessee behind the chains. The Vols also gave up four sacks against Arkansas.
“A lot of us just hurting ourselves,” Sampson said when asked what went wrong. “A lot of penalties. A lot of things that we can control and we can fix.”
Perhaps. However, the Vols weren’t just lackadaisical in their preparation, per Sampson. They also didn’t handle adversity particularly well in the final moment of the game, which ended with Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava running out of bounds with no time left on the clock. Sampson said the Vols seemed “antsy” at times against the Razorbacks. He didn’t specify, but that certainly seemed to be the case on the Vols’ final drive of the game.
“I think we were just real frantic…just going into road environments and keeping our composure,” Sampson said. “Their d-line did a good job. They also did a good job of disguising their blitzes.
“It’s our job to help clean up some of that stuff and help the o-line. We’ll get that together.”
They had better. Tennessee hosts Florida on Saturday in Neyland Stadium.
