You can’t polish what Tennessee’s football team did against Arkansas on Saturday. You can only do one thing.
“You flush it,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said as part of his initial statement on Monday during his weekly press conference. “You move on and as competitors, you’re only as good as your next one. Everybody in the building disappointed with the outcome on Saturday night.”
The outcome was disappointing for everyone involved. Despite being double-digit favorites against the Razorbacks, the Vols lost 19-14 in Fayetteville.
“You can’t do anything about that at this point, other than take the lessons and and push forward and continue to to grow as a football team,” Heupel said. “No matter what happened the previous week, you’ve got to move on.”
Heupel said he was happy with the Vols’ during practice on Monday morning, adding that the demeanor was good. Heupel also challenged Tennessee’s fan base to provide a hostile home field advantage when the No. 8 Vols host the Florida Gators, who are are unranked, in Neyland Stadium on Saturday.
“Our fans need to be a huge part of the environment and the football game as well,” Heupel said, reminding fans that it has been almost a month since the Vols played at home. “Looking forward to it. Florida’s playing their best ball right now. They’ve continued to get better throughout the course of the season.
“That’s really in all three phases. Defensively, long, athletic have speed. Offensively, both of the quarterbacks are playing really good football right now. And offensive line’s really solid.”
The Gators have gone with two quarterback system with Graham Mertz and D.J. Lagway manning the offense after losing two of their first three game. Since then, Florida has beaten Mississippi State 45-28 and Central Florida 24-13 as Florida head coach Billy Napier has instituted more physical practices in recent weeks, per various reports.
The Vols might not hold the same sort of practices, but they have to improve no matter the method. In particular, the Vols haven’t played with the same fast pace that Heupel is known for. Why?
“So many self-inflicted wounds, pre-snap penalties, playing penalties, miscommunication,” Heupel said specifically about the loss to Arkansas. “So at times you’re not playing on tempo. When we’ve wanted to play with tempo, we’ve been able to do it and and play efficiently…At the end of the day, you’ve got to play smart, effective football. I certainly slowed things down in the second half and played a different style just because of the flow of the football game and trying to play all three phases together.”
That means winning with defense as the Vols’ offense struggles. That worked against Oklahoma, but not against Arkansas.
The Vols were 4-0 and riding high before the loss to the Razorbacks. Tennessee was coming off of a tough 25-15 win over Oklahoma and had a bye week to prepare for Arkansas. That didn’t help, especially in pass protection in which the Vols gave up four sacks against the Hawgs. Part of the issue has been that so many teams have played the Vols with a 3-3 defensive front, which has certainly caused issues against the Razorbacks and the Sooners.
“Structurally, that’s what the last couple opponents have decided to play against us,” Heupel said. “Certainly capable last week of attacking and performing better than we did in the run game and in the pass game.
“Some of the things that that we control, not taking anything away from Arkansas, but some of the things that we control, we did not handle very well.
That was certainly the case with quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who completed just 16 of 28 passes for 156 yards and no touchdowns as he under constant durress.
“Some of that’s Nico,” Heupel said. “Some of that’s the guys around him. Quarterback position takes ten of the guys around you playing at a high level, too. So sum of all parts, all 11 operating.”
The Vols likely might not have their usual 11 operating this week. Heupel said receivers Bru McCoy and Squirrel White won’t be out for the season after suffering injuries on Saturday. However, Heupel said he wouldn’t know until later in the week if either would be able to play against Florida.
