While Tennessee was idle last Saturday, college football was hyperactive from midday until after midnight.
The Vols’ place in the Associated Press’ weekly top 25 rankings reflected the upheaval that took place. Without lifting a finger, they still rose three spots to a tie with Washington State for No. 19 in advance of Saturday’s game against Texas A&M. Kickoff is 3:30 p.m. at Neyland Stadium.
The Vols didn’t have to look beyond their own neighborhood to appreciate what happened. Fellow SEC East rival Kentucky fell four spots to No. 24 after being routed 51-13 at Georgia. Missouri, another division foe, tumbled out of the poll after suffering its first loss, 49-39 to LSU.
The resulting fallout fell into several categories:
-It’s one game: The refrain understandably was common among the losing teams.
“It’s only one loss in this league,” Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said after the Aggies lost to Alabama 26-20.
Kentucky’s Mark Stoops and Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz expressed their version of the same idea.
Interestingly, so did Georgia linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson. After the two-time defending national champion Bulldogs finally played up to their No. 1 ranking, he was asked if the performance constituted a statement win. “I don’t think a statement is made in one night,” Dumas-Johnson said. “We have to keep progressing.”
-You can lose when you win: The physical nature of Alabama’s game at A&M resulted in several noteworthy injuries. The biggest arguably was an ankle injury suffered by senior defensive back Malachi Moore. He left the game in the second quarter and didn’t return. Punter James Burnip also left in the second quarter with a pulled leg muscle and was replaced by starting kicker Will Reichard. Senior guard Darrian Dalcourt (shoulder) was scratched after pre-game warmups.
“There’s gonna be opportunities for other people to step up and how well they do that will be a huge determination (regarding the season) because I don’t think we have any easy games coming up,” Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said.
With Tennessee playing the Tide in two weeks, the injury report bears watching
-Response time: The losing locker rooms also echoed with talk of regrouping. Stoops said he broached the subject of responding before leaving Athens, Ga. In fact, the coach said he addressed handling adversity before the season started.
For UT, the most relevant response came from Texas A&M wide receiver Ainias Smith.
“Don’t divide, you know what I’m saying?" Smith asked and then answered: “We need to stay together as a team and we just need to build off of this game and really go in almost angry, you know what I’m saying? And come back with a vengeance.”
Other UT notes:
-Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said on Monday that he anticipates having receiver Dont’e Thornton back this week. Heupel said the same regarding defensive back Doneiko Slaughter but added: “Again, he has to go through the week and be in the right position but we anticipate that happening.”
-Former two-time All American and College Football Hall of Fame inductee Eric Berry will be in attendance on Saturday.
-Tennessee leads the SEC in rushing yards per game (231.2) and sacks per game (4.4). Nationally, the two statistics rank seventh and second respectively.
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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who has covered University of Tennessee athletics since 1988. He is a 2022 inductee to the Tennessee Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.