Vols 20, Gators 21...Just UT Being UT in the Fulmer Era

Drained, exasperated, confounded...all are good words to describe being a Volunteer fan in recent years. Tennessee almost always has superior, or at least equal, athletes to the teams they play. This leaves two things that are the root cause of the Vols' vascillation between greatness and mediocrity: coaching and execution.

Tonight the Vols had everything going for them: home crowd, equal or better athletes everywhere it mattered, and a great inspirational story with DT Justin Harrell playing basically on one arm in his last game. This loss can't be chalked up to the refs either, b/c there were two iffy calls in this game, one against each team that cost them each a TD, so that part basically evened out.

Taking the coaching first, it doesn't matter who the coordinators are, even as good as Offensive Coordinator David Cutcliffe consistently is all around and Defensive Coordinator John Chavis is schemewise, so long as Phil Fulmer is the head coach, the buck stops with him, and the Vols won't win anything of consequence as long as he's steering the boat, plain and simple. This man lacks the killer instinct to coach at an SEC school, just as his predecessor Johnny Majors did. Love him or hate him, Steve Spurrier had/has that killer instinct, and is willing to put his boot on someone's neck and crush the life out of them when he has them down...Fulmer doesn't, never has, and never will. If he hasn't shown it in 10+ years, it ain't coming folks.

Tonight is a perfect example of that, Tennessee was up 10 and had the chance to put the Gators away, but they didn't do it because they were playing not to lose instead of playing to win. Instead of going downfield with the passing game that got them the lead, they stuck with a run game that was averaging negative yards per carry on the night. In no less than 5 series the second half, the Vols ran on first, ran on second, and threw on third, and ended up punting four times and losing the ball on downs the other possession. This allowed Florida to climb back up off the mat and back into the game.

The other coaching brainfart was getting beat repeatedly by the same plays all night long. Here's a clue retards...when QB Tim Tebow came into the game, they should've put 10 in the box b/c a QB draw wass coming and everyone in the stadium (except the UT coaches) knew it. That play was run 7 times, all for positive yards, and four for killer first downs that were easily preventable. Also, re: that scramble left and throwback right play, the Vols ran the same defense against it twice and got beat for 2 easy TDs that cost them the game.

In terms of execution, well, it's hard to execute anything when your O-line doesn't even get off the bus. Florida's D-line took off its belt and made the Vols' O-line it's little sissy bee-yatches to the tune of less than a yard a carry...make it 15 of the last 17 games where the team in this game with the most rushing yards has won. Tennessee held its own nicely in the first half, but the D was on the field forever, and it showed in the second half, where they got gassed and were gashed repeatedly on the ground.

Oh, and all those improvements UT made against Air Force and Cal...? Those went out the window. The Vols went right back to missing tackles on D like they have been for about the past decade, throwing guys forward instead of sideways or backwards, including the clinching run in the final minute that should've been a gain of 3 instead of 7. Special teams did pretty well, until Wilhoit kicked the last kickoff out of bounds and set up Florida sixty-five yards from paydirt. In short, Tennessee deserved to lose this game, and are lucky the manhandling they got didn't produced the a$$-kicking worthy of their play.

Simply put, Tennessee showed up to a game against an elite program in a game that would be decide by inches packing only centimeters and no sack...and that's no one's fault but their own. So shall it always be in the Fulmer era, and Vols' fans can either demand a change or get used to it.