KN OXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE-TV) – The Vols may have scored the first touchdown of the game against Florida, but the Gators scored the next four and never looked back.
While the Tennessee offense struggled in its first two games against Virginia and Austin Peay, the defense carried the load. But against Florida, the defensive breakdowns allowed Florida to gain momentum.
“Defensively there were a couple of times where we got out of our gap,” said Head Coach Josh Heupel. “And when I say out of our gap, not that we were completely missing our gap – just we’re behind. And so a linebacker being a step behind allows that double-team (by the offensive line) to be thicker, then they climb up on the second level and you create a vertical seam. The tackling issues, in particular in the first half, some poor fundamentals and a couple of times where the effort’s not very good.”
Heupel added that while he wants his team to be affected by the loss, they need to also move on and learn from it.
“The first thing is it better hurt and it better matter,” said Heupel. “You could see that from our players yesterday and today. I think I said it earlier, at the same time, all those lessons have got to move forward, but you’ve also got to wash this one clean, you know what I mean? When our players come back later today, we’ve got to move on to the next one. That’ll be really important for us as a staff and as a program.”
