Summing up UT

[40bill]

A lot easier this week.
Mark Stoops comments were true....the players didn't perform the whole game well (do we really have a secondary?)
The coaches certainly could have done better.
BUT:
Four turnovers against a team with definitely more star power, and an incredible inability to pass, losing the time of possession drastically, and coming off the worst beating (and I mean physical beating) in a year......AND only beating this UT squad once in over 30 years....
And won.

Kids showed me some toughness not only coming back from a whipping, they wouldn't allow themselves to beat themselves.
Huge gut check.
This whole team feeds off Johnson. Two star kid that was a last second gasp when all the backups left the team to Drew Barker and nobody.
I heard it was Coach Williams that passed the heads up of SJ to our coaches. Buy that man the biggest steak dinner we can afford.

Now just have to carry this new refound heart on to the Ol Miss game.

[SCBlu]

It's amazing how only plus or minus three yards can shape the psyche of an entire fan base. Had that last second hail Mary receiver fought 3 more yards to the end zone, many fans would have been calling for heads to roll and reminding others that our program has been snakebitten since the mid-50s. But a very timely tackle by several defenders has made us bowl-eligible and ready to turn-the-page on all the bad luck/poor play of the past. THREE MEASLEY YARDS!

[40bill]

Tennessee is two plays from being 5-3. Two. I have no doubt the would have beaten Florida if that game had gone ot.

[KCKUKFan]

I'll sum it up in two sentences:

Benny Snell and Stephen Johnson showed up and are big time gamers. Everything else was borderline terrible, and Stoops is a mediocre football coach.

[Spiritof96]

I thought the defense improved significantly as the game wore on. UT's last possession was more of an adventure than it should have been but still... they held their own when the had to. Will to win is something many a UK team has not had. Stoops deserves some credit for how far the program has come.

I think our fans can be a little delusional about who WE are. The climb to "respectable" is going to be long. Consider Nick Saban's record at Mich st. 6-5, 6-6, 7-5, 6-6, 9-2. Location matters.

[catfaninin]

A lot of credit should go to the defense. They didn't really play well. Gave up a ton of yardage. Had wide open receivers. Tackled poorly. But when they had to make a play they did. They were put in a lot of bad situations by turnovers, and spent a lot of time on the field. Forcing field goal attempts was huge. If not for that UT could have easily scored 50.

[Old School]

A lot of credit should go to the defense. They didn't really play well. Gave up a ton of yardage. Had wide open receivers. Tackled poorly. But when they had to make a play they did. They were put in a lot of bad situations by turnovers, and spent a lot of time on the field. Forcing field goal attempts was huge. If not for that UT could have easily scored 50.

Odd night for the defense. They had a tough way to go, through no fault of their own:

- They were on the field for 38:25 out of 60:00.

- UT ran 77 plays to UK's 60.

- UK managed only 17 first downs all night.

- UK was only 3 of 7 on third down conversions.

- Johnson only threw 15 passes all night.

- They had to come out to defend short fields on four UK turnovers, and did well each time:

-- first play of the game, UT gets a Snell fumble on the UK 15; pass for no gain, run for 3 yards, incomplete pass, field goal followed - a very nice short field stand

-- Sihiem King's fumble put UT on the UK 41; UK held them to the 26 and they missed a FG attempt

-- Barker's fumble gave UT the ball on their 44; they got to the 6, gave up a sack to the 12 (Allen and Paschal), and hit a FG. UK had two TFLs plus a sack on that drive.

-- Juice's fumble gave UK the ball at the UK 49; UK gave up a 21 yard run but then Edwards had a sack and UT hit a 45 yard FG.

Officially, UK's offense had a penalty-free evening, which is remarkable, and appears to have gone unnoticed. (The exception, not appearing in the box score, would be the offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct penalty assessed against Tavin Richardson.) The defense picked up all of UK's yellow flags, but only four of them (plus one declined), for a total of 44 yards and 2 first downs:

- face mask on Denzil Ware in the first quarter that took Tennessee from the 18 to the 9, but they held UT to a field goal.

- pass interference on Westry in the second quarter, taking UT from 2nd and 10 at their own 36 to 1st and 10 at the UK 49. UT scored a TD on that drive.

- defensive holding (declined) on 3rd and 5, when UT took a 23 yard pass to the UK 19 and scored their other TD. (I'm not sure who was flagged for that.)

- Middleton offside on 1st and 10 at the UK 45; the defense held UT to a punt.

- pass interference on Westry in the 4th quarter, taking UT from 3rd and 10 at their own 30 to 1st and 10 at their 45. They ended up punting.

7 sacks. 12 TFLs. Those are nice stats. UT has some outstanding offensive linemen. One of them was the #1 overall prospect in the entire country at any position in his class, and is probably going to be the best in the SEC eventually.

Ware looked good. Bohanna and Carter are improving. Bohanna had a nice game against his home state school.

Mike Edwards: 10 tackles, 1 sack, 1.5 TFL

Jordan Jones: 13 tackles, 1 sack, 2 TFL

Josh Allen: 7 tackles, 1 TFL, 0.5 sacks

Denzil Ware: 9 tackles, 1 sack, 2 TFL

Darius West: 8 tackles, 1 TFL

Adrian Middleton: 2 tackles, 1 sack

Josh Paschal (true freshman): 3 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 0.5 sacks

Lonnie Johnson: 3 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 sack

I'd like to see more from Middleton and Hoskins.

Tackles by position:

DL: 25 (I don't know the last time UK's DL had that many tackles, much less in an SEC game)

LB: 32

DB: 29

(total exceeds UT's number of offensive plays due to special teams and non-solo tackles)

And this unit has three 4 star freshmen redshirting (Ajian, Richardson, Corker - ESPN 150 Corker picked UK over UT) along with Wright, King, Nesbitt, Davis, Whittaker, and Abadi.

I think the unit is coming along well. It has improved greatly since Stoops got here, but doesn't seem to be near its ceiling or top of trajectory yet.

I was really, really concerned about the DL coming into the season. It has performed much better than I expected.

The LBs have been really solid.

The secondary hasn't been as good as I expected, but they're better than what we've often seen at UK. The underclassmen, freshmen especially, are cutting their teeth competing against some very talented, athletic incumbents.

[boomdaddy]

3 yards? Baloney! How would the game have gone if the refs would call all of the holding that the UT line was allowed to get away with?

The Cats were in prevent. Didn't matter what yard line they Vols ended up at, as long as they didn't cross the goal line.

Yes, I am biased and yes, I thought that UK was the better team that won, despite 4 turnovers (one of which was very questionable), and the refs seemingly did their best to look the other way, when UK's pass rushers were held on every play.

The refs sure didn't have a problem calling a holding penalty against UK that cost them the victory against Florida, after Snell had already run past the defender and he couldn't have made a play anyway.

[Old School]

3 yards? Baloney! How would the game have gone if the refs would call all of the holding that the UT line was allowed to get away with?

The Cats were in prevent. Didn't matter what yard line they Vols ended up at, as long as they didn't cross the goal line.

Yes, I am biased and yes, I thought that UK was the better team that won, despite 4 turnovers (one of which was very questionable), and the refs seemingly did their best to look the other way, when UK's pass rushers were held on every play.

The refs sure didn't have a problem calling a holding penalty against UK that cost them the victory against Florida, after Snell had already run past the defender and he couldn't have made a play anyway.

On either the last or second to last play of the game, a UT lineman did exactly what UK was whistled for in that Florida game, right in front of an official. No flag.

[johnkyblue]

I think they would have called a holding penalty on us to keep us out of the endzone on that last drive if they knew they weren't already in the doghouse for their call against UF. When I mentioned the refs in the game thread, that's what that was about. Crap you can't see on teevee.

[johnkyblue]

On either the last or second to last play of the game, a UT lineman did exactly what UK was whistled for in that Florida game, right in front of an official. No flag.

And it would have almost run out the clock with a 10 second runoff, they got off another play cause of it.

[Westtncat]

Glad we won but geez!, games like this give you false hope. We played really bad and just happen to win. Play like that again and we will have lost two out of the last three. Anybody other than UT and we lose. Hate to be negative out of a win but just looking at what we gave up on defense and 4 fumbles on offense.Thats not good football.

[johnkyblue]

We keep just happening to win... bowl bound... I love it and I don't give a crap if anybody thinks it's pretty. It's football, it's not a woman.

[Joneslab]

Glad we won but geez!, games like this give you false hope. We played really bad and just happen to win. Play like that again and we will have lost two out of the last three. Anybody other than UT and we lose. Hate to be negative out of a win but just looking at what we gave up on defense and 4 fumbles on offense.Thats not good football.

We haven't played well all year.

That's the thing: we don't play well. We aren't very good in all facets. Not consistently. Every game is virtually identical.

But we win.

[KevinHall]

We haven't played well all year.

That's the thing: we don't play well. We aren't very good in all facets. Not consistently. Every game is virtually identical.

But we win.

Just win, baby. That's the bottom line. If this how they have to play to win then its fine with me.