KNOXVILLE -- The Tennessee football team did its best to move on from Saturday’s loss to Florida with an hour-long workout Sunday night inside the Neyland-Thompson Sports Center.
The Sunday practice is reserved in part for making corrections from the previous game, and Tennessee head coach Phillip Fulmer noted that the Vols had plenty of mistakes to choose from on this Sunday night.
“It’s really important that we eliminate the mistakes that we made,” Fulmer said. “You can't beat an average football team with nine penalties and two turnovers; you especially can't beat a good football team like Florida or like Auburn. We need to play a more consistent brand of football.”
One area where the Vols did not need too many corrections was on defense. Tennessee allowed the Gators just 243 yards of total offense Saturday, Florida’s lowest total offensive output vs. the Vols since 1990. The discrepancy between the stat sheet and the scoreboard was due to turnovers and special teams miscues. But a few small successes on defense are not enough to sway the spirits of the Vols heading into another big SEC game.
“I don't think anybody is going to be upbeat right now,” Fulmer said. “It’s a tough loss. We had a fighting chance if we had played well, but we did not play well in certain phases consistently enough.
“When we get to Tuesday, I expect to see a team that’s ready to go to work to improve. I want to see a bunch of guys around here tomorrow watching tape of Auburn and getting themselves ready.”
Tennessee travels to Auburn for its SEC road opener Saturday. The game is scheduled to kick off at 2:30 p.m. CT and air nationally on CBS.
(E-mail Stan Crawley at wscrawley@earthlink.net)