Streak Extended: Vols Lose Another Heartbreaker to Gators

The Vols were supposed to be one of the true contenders for the East this year, and Florida beat them. The second was a 16-yard pass to Powell, who three plays later, caught a 5-yard scoring pass from Grier to make the score 27-21 with 4:09 left.

The Tennessee Volunteers made the trek down to Gainesville, Florida to take on the 3-0 Florida Gators.

Following Jalen Hurd’s 10-yard touchdown run with 10:19 left, Tennessee coach Butch Jones played it safe by electing to kick the extra point to go up 27-14, rather than go for 2 and a possible 14-point lead. Josh Dobbs has led the offense well through the first few games, but it’s been the ground attack that has paced them to victory.

Tennessee proceeded to drive the ball to the Florida 38-yard line, where kicker Aaron Medley missed a 55-yard field goal as time expired. They were summoned back after realizing McElwain had called timeout to ice Medley.

Jones said he felt his team “did a great job of managing the game and getting down there and giving us an opportunity”. Then reality set in: another shocking loss for the Vols. “We’ll win our share of games in the fourth quarter as well, but we just need to stay positive”. Grier dug deep, too, putting together two signature drives that will forever etch his name in school history. The point ended up being crucial. But this was something to marvel over: It took a ton of guts to call this in a tie ball game and with not much going offensively, even if it was really the same design Jones famously used at Cincinnati.

We likely won’t figure out how the players actually feel, and that’s probably for the best. Florida – Florida was 5-for-5 on fourth down conversions, and 3-for-15 on third downs. It’s a team that doesn’t give up, though, and it stayed with it in the fourth quarter despite essentially no evidence in the prior three that said they could sustain a pair of drives to win it. This was the kind of game that Will Muschamp’s teams would lose, but McElwain found a way to win. “So it’s something we’re looking forward to motivate us and come out (of) this game with a win”.

Ah, the double pass. This week we really saw Jones and offensive coordinator Mike DeBord do what they had to do to get their best runner some space.

When Butch Jones took the podium for his post-game press conference after Tennessee’s devastating 28-27 loss to Florida on Saturday in Gainesville, Fla., he already appeared to want to move on and talk about anything else. With the Gators stacking the box, Tennessee runs three times and ends up with zero net yards on the possession.

Gators running back Kelvin Taylor also ran for one touchdown and totaled 45 yards on 16 carries. “If that is the case, why don’t you make a bigger deal about it?” Nobody wins games in February, you have to get things done in the fall. “And they have good skill”.

Grier completed just three of this previous 10 passes and absorbed considerable punishment from the Vols’ front seven before connecting on 11 of 17 throws for 141 yards and two touchdowns to close the game. UT’s receivers are averaging 11.6 yards per catch.

“Antonio told me before the game that he was going to score”, McElwain said.

“It was pretty cool, wasn’t it?” Jones was still not the first choice, but promises of building Tennessee back up “brick by brick” to the success they had experienced during the glory years made the Volunteer faithful happy. Ole Miss (4-0, 2-0) came into the game averaging 64 points per game – tops in the nation – but settled for three field goal attempts when inside Vanderbilt’s 20.