Tennessee Trips in 4th, Loses to Gators

Tennessee went into this game looking to beat a rebuilding Florida team pretty easily, but as any die hard Vols fan knows, one can never sleep on the Gators. They will bite you if you underestimate them. That is exactly what they did in a 37-20 win over Tennessee.A lot of Vols fans, including myself, thought this would be the year that the streak finally ended and the Vols would be back to the days of old.

We would reminisce on the days where Tee Martin took our beloved Vols to an undefeated record and a national title, and the days where Peyton Manning was never able to get passed those hated Gators, but could always be relied on to beat those awful Georgia Bulldogs.

Not the days where Tim Tebow would run roughshod over the Vols with his ridiculously lucky jump pass in the endzone, or his innate ability to beat you with his speed.

Critics are already comparing the Gators new QB Jeff Driskel to Tebow. Way too soon, and how many overhyped quarterbacks can the Gators find? Granted, Tebow’s skill set is suited for the college game but we all have seen how well he plays in the pros.

Now to the actual game, Tennessee came out of the gates a little jumpy with Tyler Bray throwing a few questionable passes. One of those passes hit a Gator Linebacker right in the numbers.

Florida scored first on a run by Trey Burton, but Tennessee quickly answered on a two yard pass to Cordarrelle Patterson to even the score at 7.

Tennessee took advantage of their next opportunity with the ball and scored on a pass that had Mychal Rivera standing all alone in the back of the endzone. Tennessee led 14-7.

Florida’s next points came off of a field goal by Caleb Sturgis, which brought the Gators to within four going into the half.

Florida got the ball back after the half and turned that possession into another three points.

Tennessee surprised a lot of people when they tried their hand at a variation of the wild cat formation last week against Georgia State. The “Wild Vol,” as it is called, featured freshman linebacker Justin King last week at QB.

This week against Florida, it featured starting Inside Linebacker A.J. Johnson at the helm. Johnson surprised 102, 455 people with his athleticism as a runner. He punched in the ball on the Vols one yard line untouched. Yes, it was a one yard run but against a staunch Florida front seven going anywhere untouched is unheard of.

This put the Vols up 20-13 after Derrick Brodus clanked the extra point off of not one but both sides of the goal post and still missed it.

Neyland Stadium fell eerily quiet after Trey Burton broke off a 75 yard touchdown QB keeper to even up the score. The mood expressed amongst most Vol fans was “There is still a lot of game left” but down deep we all felt this was a sign that nothing good was going to come out of this game.

There was still quite a bit of game left but Tennessee did not score again. The Gators went on to score 17 more points and keep the streak alive. Sorry Vol fans, hopefully next year.