Tennessee football fans turned Neyland Stadium into an orange-and-white checkerboard Saturday.
photo by Larry Fleming
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee couldn’t win Saturday’s Southeastern Conference game against nemesis Florida, but the Vols found several ways to lose it.
And the pitfalls, which enabled the Gators (3-1, 2-1) to extend their winning streak over Tennessee to 10 games, derived from the Vols’ inept defense that got all of its scoring from three Aaron Medley field goals.
Florida’s offense was even more ineffective than as the Vols for three full quarters, but reserve quarterback Treon Harris replaced struggling Jeff Driskel and directed the Gators to two fourth-quarter scores, including Austin Hardin’s 49-yard line-drive field goal with 6:20 left, and a 10-9 win over the Vols.
“It’s great to see all these people out here disappointed,” Florida coach Will Muschamp said.
“I love it.”
Tennessee hasn’t beaten Florida since posting a 30-28 win in 2004 on James Wilhoit’s 50-yard field goal with seven seconds remaining.
There was nothing about the latest game against Florida that can soothe the Vols’ down-to-the-bone frustration – highlighted by another late-game collapse – in a series the Gators now lead 25-19 thanks after a decade of dominance on the scoreboard.
Vols coach Butch Jones tried to put the best face on yet another tough loss.
“I’m angered and upset,” he said, “but I’m just as patient as anyone. We’re going to be all right and I’m not discouraged because I see the progress every day. You (fans) need to hang in there. We’re going to get it together.”
Tennessee was favored to win this one.
Rapper Lil Jon delivered a tape pregame pep talk, almost 400 former Vol players followed current players through the “T” and the place was loud.
Instead of proving the odds-makers they are good at what they do, the Vols once again came up empty.
Tennessee was favored the last time the Gators visited Knoxville. The Vols had a second-half lead, but another patented meltdown paved the way for a 37-20 Florida victory.
The Vols (2-3, 0-2) struggled from start to finish, but the defense delighted the orange-and-white checkerboard patterned Tennessee partisans in a sellout crowd of 102,455 kept saving the offense’s hide until the final 13-plus minutes.
It wasn’t enough though.
“Neyland was definitely rocking,” linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said. “The checkerboard (fans wore orange or white shirts in alternating sections of the mammoth stadium) looked great. It was a great atmosphere. We just didn’t get the job done.”
Again.
Medley, the sure-footed freshman from Lewisburg, kept salvaging ill-fated drives and gave the Vols a 9-0 lead on field goals of 36, 38 and 39 yards, the last coming with 2:21 left in the third quarter to produce a two-score cushion.
“(My) confidence is tremendous right now,” said Medley, who has made 8 of 10 field goals this season and hasn’t missed since the Arkansas State game.
The rest of the Vols may have left Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon a little shaken.
Quarterback Justin Worley was just shy of awful at times – the young offensive line has to share some of the blame – and was sacked six times for minus-45 yards. Florida’s Bryan Cox had three sacks.
The Gators, who gave up 645 total yards to Alabama two weeks ago, had six sacks in their previous four games.
Worley, who was coming off a 264-yard, two-touchdown effort in a tough loss at Georgia, threw for 205 yards, but fired two interceptions.
And when Worley was sacked in the final seconds of the third quarter, the complexion of the game immediately changed.
On second-and-five from the Vols’ 43, Florida’s Jalen Tabor sacked Worley, knocked the ball loose and recovered the fumble at Tennessee’s 30.
“I’m going to get hit,” Worley said, “and I’m going to bounce back from it. We have to do a better job up front at times, but those guys fought hard and did a great job other times.
“(The loss) hurts a lot considering we had control of this game most of the time. Not being able to finish it out really hurts.”
Then, Muschamp decided he’d seen enough of Driskel – the Vols intercepted him three times, including Cam Sutton’s third pick of the season – and sent Treon Harris on to the field.
Running back Matt Jones, who rushed for 114 yards on 23 carries (the Gators have outrushed the Vols in each game of the current winning streak), scored the game’s only touchdowns two plays later on a 2-yard run.
Suddenly, Tennessee’s lead was down to 9-7 with 13:40 left in the game.
Worley didn’t appear to be on his game, but after halftime the Rock Hill, S.C., senior went 10-of-20 for 80 yards with two interceptions and the costly fumble.
On what proved to be the game-winning drive, the Gators faced a fourth-and-3 from the Vols’ 32. Muschamp decided not to gamble and Hardin trotted on to the field to try his second field goal of the season.
Hardin sent a 49-yard rifle through the uprights for the go-ahead boot. Television replays showed the play clock clearly hit 0:00 before the snap.
The Vols had one more chance to pull out a victory.
On third-and-10, Alton Howard made a nice catch on a 15-yard pass from Worley at the Gators’ 37. Jalen Hurd, who missed time from a slight shoulder injury, was stopped by Adams for no gain. Worley and Howard hooked up again, but for no gain. Josh Malone bobbled a Worley pass going out of bounds for an incompletion.
The Worley-to-Howard duo went for 15 yards on fourth down at Florida’s 48.
With 51 seconds left, Florida’s Keanu Neal intercepted Worley to seal the win.
In the third quarter, Vols linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin intercepted Driskel at the Gators’ 27, handing the Vols a golden opportunity to put a touchdown on the board.
On the very next play, Worley threw an ill-advised, falling-back pass toward the end zone only to have Vernon Hargreaves making a diving interception at the goal line.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to score touchdowns in the red zone and you can’t turn the ball over,” Jones said. “That’s pretty much the storyline. We had to kick field goals. You can’t do that.”
Now, the Vols have plenty of questions to answer before next week’s home game against Tennessee-Chattanooga (4 p.m. on the SEC Network).
And Muschamp may have to answer more than a few questions about who – Driskel or Harris – will start the Gators’ next game against 15th-ranked LSU.
“We won’t make a decision on who’s going to start our next ballgame today,” he said. “It was a very emotional win. We’re going home, we’re going to watch film, we’re going to see why we’re not offensively doing some things we feel like are there. It wasn’t all on Jeff today.”
Scoring Summary
Florida 0 0 0 10 — 10
Tennessee 0 3 6 0 – 9
Second Quarter
TENN —FG Aaron Medley 36, 13:23
Third Quarter
TENN – FG Medley 38, 9:24
TENN — FG Medley 39, 2:21
Fourth Quarter
FLA – Matt Jones 2 run (Frankie Velez kick), 13:40
FLA – FG Austin Hardin 49, 6:20
YARDSTICK
FLA TENN
First Downs 16 12
Rushes-Yards 48-156 29-28
Passing Yards 76 205
Att-Com-Int 13-27-3 26-39-2
Total Yards 75-232 68-233
Fumbles-Lost 1-0 2-1
Punts.-Avg. 8-35.2 8-43.0
Penalties-Yds. 5-45 8-49
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Florida: Matt Jones 23-114, Jeff Driskel 14-30, Treon Harris 4-24, Kelvin Taylor 3-1, Valdez Showers 1-minus 5, Team 3-minus 8; Tennessee: Jalen Hurd 10-39, Marlin Lane 10-22, Devrin Young 1-7, Alton Howard 1-5, Justin Worley 7-minus 45.
PASSING — Florida: Driskel 11-23-3 59, Harris 2-4-0 17; Tennessee: Worley 27-38-0 273, Nathan Peterman 1-1-0 0, Howard 0-1-0 0.
RECEIVING – Florida: Jones 4-19, Demarcus Robinson 3-30, Latroy Pittman 2-13, Quinton Dunbar 1-6, Clay Burton 1-5, Tevin Westbrook 1-5, Taylor 1-minus 2; Tennessee: Howard 6-79, Johnathon Johnson 2-29, Josh Malone 4-28, Marquez North 4-26, Daniel Helm 2-16, Young 2-15, Von Pearson 1-6, Hurd 4-3, Ethan Wolf 1-3.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)